I was in downtown LA this weekend. I hung out in my old neck of the woods in the Artist District. Before Covid, gentrification was beginning to set in. The area was becoming lively with new businesses popping up. Then Covid hit. One of the lasting symptoms was closure of many of the businesses. The area hasn’t really recovered until recently.
I noticed a number of trendy restaurants opening up. The area is becoming cool again. There are still some shuttered storefronts, but it’s only a matter of time before open signs will hang from the doors again. Yet I’m torn. A part of me is glad about the resurgence of the area, my old neighborhood that I called home for over a decade. At the same time, gentrification continues to drive up rents and property values, squeezing out the locals that once called it home.
One of the local family owned restaurants was a victim of shady real estate owners. The beloved restaurant had been around since 1950 and was a staple of the neighborhood. The real estate company stopped depositing their rent checks so they could claim the restaurant was behind on rent and ultimately began eviction proceedings. All this because the current lease agreement was below market in the newly gentrified area. It’s difficult getting behind expansion and neighborhood upgrades when shenanigans like this occur.
Over the years, real estate developers built luxury condos in the area as well. This pushed up rents in the surrounding area. Artists work/live lofts must have been subject to increases as well as developers began upgrading these downtown lofts for new upwardly mobile buyers. Although they still refer to the area as the Artist District, I wonder how many artists actually live there now.
I left the local neighborhood coffee roaster, coffee in hand. I passed by many of the newly opened restaurants and peered in the windows. They look pretty cool, I have to admit. And that’s where my mixed feeling lie. Then it dawned on me, one of my favorite graffiti murals was no longer there. It was painted over for a cleaner restaurant look. I am a little sad to see it go. Part of me understands, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Yes, that mural gave the area a little grit and maybe that no longer matches the evolving space. I miss it, still the same. I’m bracing myself because at some point I may not recognize the neighborhood at all. When that happens, it will be too indistinguishable to call home and that will be a sad chapter closing for me. It’s just a matter of time. The train has left the station and there’s no stopping it. I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts.
Collective Soul released The World I Know in 1995. They sing about the good and bad feelings that life in the city evokes.
“There was still some grit and dirt to New York City,” he said in a Songfacts interview. “Especially around Times Square and Union Square back then. I literally walked out of the room, took a two-hour walk around New York, and just absorbed and observed from the highs and lows of what society was offering in the greatest city in the world.
Back then, there were still homeless people living in cardboard boxes. Then, somebody pulled up in a nice limousine, with fur coats on, and walked right by.
Just to be in that big city, I was looking at what the good was, what the bad was, but also, you don’t know what good feels like until you feel bad. You don’t know what bad feels like until you feel good. So, I was trying to use that whole imagery and using it with New York City as I walked around.”
It sounds like a similar walk as mine. It’s difficult to fully celebrate or mourn changes walking through a living breathing city. Because there’s no such thing as utopia, light and darkness will always exist. It feels like a balloon. You squeeze one side and the other side inflates. You squeeze the other side, the opposite effect happens. Squeezing in the middle, both sides balloon up. There’s no escaping it. Collective Soul is right. It’s just the world we know.
So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down
‘Cause it’s the world I know
Oh. It’s the world I know
–
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Has our conscience shown?
Has the sweet breeze blown?
Has all kindness gone?
Hope still lingers on
I drink myself of new-found pity
Sitting alone in New York City
And I don't know why
Are we listening?
To hymns of offering?
Have we eyes to see
Love is gathering?
All the words that I've been reading
Have now started the act of bleeding
Into one, into one
So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down
'Cause it's the world I know
Oh. It's the world I know
I drink myself of new-found pity
Sitting alone in New York City
And I don't know why
Don't know why
So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down
'Cause it's the world I know
Oh. It's the world I know
Yeah, I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down
'Cause it's the world I know
Oh. It's the world I know
