BY REV. JEN | Gentrification has often been defined as the process of making an unprosperous neighborhood prosperous. But I tend to think of it as the process of making a once rockin’ neighborhood suck. I would much rather dodge bullets on my way home to an affordable apartment than traipse through a neighborhood full of khaki-clad bros and women who can’t handle their three overpriced PBRs and are therefore re-enacting “Girls Gone Wild Cancun.” And as a long-term Lower East Side prisoner…OOPS…I mean resident, I have witnessed the negative impact of gentrification on an almost daily basis.
Case in point is the plan for the new $1.1 billion development called “Essex Crossing” (formerly known as SPURA). The megaproject is set to be built on the south side of Delancey St., which has been vacant since 1967 when more than 1,000 low-income families were booted from their homes in order to make room for “urban renewal” development.
According to plans, Essex Crossing will contain commercial space, “affordable housing,” luxury housing and an Andy Warhol museum. (Ironic, given the city didn’t do s— when 88-year-old Warhol Superstar Taylor Mead was evicted from his Lower East Side tenement and died a few days later.) If you ask me, there should be a Taylor Mead museum, and I’m guessing Warhol would agree. Why? Because Warhol loved personalities.
Personality is what makes New York great. People visit New York for personality; not for places that look like a hybrid between the Death Star and a shopping mall. New York should actually pay for eccentrics like me to live here. And now it seems, due to Essex Crossing (which will herein be referred to as the Death Star Mall of America Shanty Town), New York City will lose two of my favorite, personality-filled places: Jade Liquor and Olympic Restaurant.
Let’s start with Jade Fountain Liquor Corporation, one of the aforementioned businesses unfortunate enough to be located on the south side of Delancey (123 Delancey). First, there is Jade’s loveable awning, which proclaims the store to be “as old as the hills” and to have been established in the ’20s. (Clearly not the case due to a little thing called Prohibition.) Second, there is Jade’s derelict-filled interior where I have witnessed unprintable things. There’s also the fact that Jade is open late and cheap as hell. As one Yelp reviewer aptly expressed, “I’m using my savings to buy a new liver when the time comes.”
When I first broke the news of Jade’s closing to my lady friend Scooter Pie, she screamed, “Noooooooo!” On the brink of tears, she added, “They were open until midnight.” We then held each other and made sweet, passionate love. (Just kidding, but I thought it’d make the story better.)
Jade’s doors aren’t closed yet, so head over there, pick up a bottle and witness a cast of characters central casting couldn’t invent if they stayed up all night.
Moving on, it appears the always delightful Olympic Restaurant (115 Delancey St.) will soon have to close its doors. Though it’s called a “restaurant,” Olympic is very much an unpretentious diner. With so many ego-driven celebrity chefs opening up fancy-pants places out there, who couldn’t use a good diner? Sometimes it’s just nice to get a cup of coffee, a greasy omelet, a beer and the company of real human beings who possess soul. This sentiment is the basis for “Diner,” one of the greatest films ever made.
Diners are a vanishing source of entertainment and inspiration, a place where people go to share ideas, get caffeinated and eat things that are bad for them. Diners are (I’m sure) where many revolutions started. Guess where no revolution has ever started? In a high-end luxury housing complex / shopping mall that fronts as a place where middle-income people can actually afford to live. (Note: There are no middle-income people left.)
As diners go, Olympic offers everything a decent diner ought to: tasty food and a bounty of wacky characters, along with a small television that perpetually plays soccer. Spiro Nikos, one of Olympic’s proprietors, who hails from Greece, once played soccer. There are few things more fun than watching games with him as he vociferously protests everything happening on the field.
His business partner, Steve, also from Greece, is equally charming. He describes himself as a grandpa, a “lover boy” and a “playboy.” What I do know is that both Spiro and him are hilarious, and that if you sit at the counter, the stories just keep coming along with the cups of coffee that they insist on refilling, even when you tell them you suffer from crippling anxiety.
Olympic Restaurant has been on Delancey for 35 years, longer than many of the neighborhood’s newer residents have been alive. And in its 35 years, the place has served many a broke New Yorker the most important meal of the day (i.e. the one meal they can afford.)
Now, Olympic is being asked to vacate the premises in June, even though construction on the Death Star isn’t slated to begin until 2015. Olympic already went to court and received one extension but it appears their days are numbered.
According to the Essex Crossing Web site, the development will place an emphasis on “community and opportunity,” along with being a place where people can “play, meet, think and relax together.” Upon reading this, I couldn’t help but think of all the times I’ve thought and relaxed at Olympic. It will be missed.
