What do you think about when you reminisce about a time and place? Family-owned and independent diners, restaurants, cafes, taverns, bars, local cinema, pizzeria, candy store, and the extinct Army/Navy store? And do you reminisce even about those bygone playgrounds whose industrial designed monkey-bars and obstacle structures which are now verboten due to safety concerns and worthy only for US Navy Seal training? They’ve all been plowed under by gentrification and replaced with cold, self-contained glassy condos where residents are lobotomized by cable TV and other silly distractions.
The smell of homemade culinary delights from a plethora of cultures are now a distant memory from the over-priced culinary fare from the new eateries who use the word 'artisanal' to describe their culinary fare and justify a three-figure tab for a meal for two. Artisanal is what mom and grandma did every single day - called homemade back then - wholesome and nutritious – whose monetary value was less than a ten-spot to feed a family of four or more.
On the surface we miss those things because that’s what they were - things. What we really miss are the people that populated them: family, friends, lovers, neighbors and even acquaintances, all who had a long-term vested interest in the community and provided its signature ebb & flow -the chit-chat, gossip, and borchinche. And the one person we cherish the most during our nostalgic thoughts: ourselves. We miss the experiences of our coming of age and youth, all which took place in this sometimes dangerous yet exciting environment. Generations came and went yet there was always a particular continuity in the gradual and subtle changes that occurred in the community enabling it to maintain its spirit and character. But in our own arrogant way, we thought change was inevitable but only on our terms.
Gentrification delinks the community from its spiritual past. It's an insidious form of psychological pacification that numbs the senses and injects conformity into the soul. The residents are dazzled and deluded by the shifting sands of the material façade and robbed of the bedrock foundation of the community experience.
The new arrivals are total strangers to a way of life that cherished community relationships. For these transients there’s no long-term investment in the community. Even with their monetary wealth they are blissfully unaware of the genuine non-monetary richness of community interaction on a deeper level that is superior to checking out the latest boutique or fusion eatery. Born into a highly mobile society, these transients will soon move on to a similar gentrified place, barely leaving a trace of their presence.
And because of this mindset and lifestyle, nostalgia to this new generation has no meaning and never will. Their future past will be nothing more than a series of trysts indistinguishable one from one another. They’ll have nothing more than scattered memories of a past of unconnected and unconnectable dots that can never be defined as nostalgia, the rich psychological pillow on which I can rest my memories anytime.
