Which neighborhood should we gentrify next?

Honestly, I don't know where you're going with this, but that doesn't make it unworthy of discussion. There are lots of places with real history and old buildings that never get gentrified, they just get run down and then torn down. Gentrification is a very complex thing, not something that can be explained by some anti-rich-people, anti-hipster philosophy.

Also, when I was looking at aplace near Marcy Projects the landlord dude told us that "they are thinking of putting a Starbucks down the street".

HA!

What jody is talking about, if I read her correctly, is her place in the gentrification curve, which goes from terribly poor people to poor artist-types to slightly wealthier artists types to straight-up arty white people to a neighborhood that you or no one you know can afford. No one who rednts or buys a home anywhere in this continuum is to blame for it.

xpost They're doing really interesting things with the housing projects in Chicago -- not quite trying to move a Starbucks in, but trying to mix middle class and poor families into adjacent housing. I guess since consolidating poverty into a few square blocks has historically worked so badly, they're going for the opposite. Unsurprisingly, no one likes this arrangment, either.

that's depressing. on the other hand, i enjoy picking a couple of things up at a whole foods once every six months. their frozen pizzas are tasty!

i've been reading about this. it seems to have worked in nyc -- the upper west side (for example) is full of blocks where there's a luxury high-rise across the street from a project. other scattered-site housing experiments around the city have been less successful.

there are some depressing statistics in this report:
http://www.urbanjustice.org/publications/PDFs/ScatteredDreams.pdf

http://www.visitsouthwark.com/peckham-named-britains-top-creative-hotspot

Seeking a Sweeter Name for Street That Provokes Snickers
# West Hollywood has no way to address the issue, so the two-block stretch north of Santa Monica Boulevard will keep its moniker.

By James Ricci, Times Staff Writer

Heading north from Santa Monica Boulevard on Hilldale, you pass streets with the reassuringly single-entendre names of Keith and Norma. Then you come to Dicks Street.

The street is a two-block stretch of 44 small abodes, most of them handsomely updated, that peek demurely from behind high shrubs and other ornamental horticulture.

The afternoon sunlight sifting down through the street's many tall trees imparts a pleasant, domestic sleepiness to the place.

Many residents, however, are embarrassed to have the street as their address because its name is the plural of a common slang term for the defining part of the male anatomy (and for "not very nice fellow").

Accordingly, this year, a resident named Michael Fisk began collecting fellow residents' signatures on a petition asking the West Hollywood City Council to rename the street "Dickson Lane." A majority signed.

"Who doesn't want it changed?" asked Shirley Gargan, who will soon turn 70 and has rented part of a triplex on the street for nearly nine years. "When people ask me my address, I say, 'You've really asked a very unfortunate question.' I mean, even my banker laughs at me. Have you ever heard of bankers laughing?"

Pro-change sentiment is not unanimous.

Allan Shatkin, a 65-year-old attorney who lives with his Chihuahua, Pepe, across the street from Gargan, thinks the effort to rename is "absurd for many reasons."

"For one thing, it's been like this for, like, a century," said Shatkin, who bought his 1,000-square-foot house 6 1/2 years ago.

"This street is famous. It's even been mentioned in a very famous novel, 'Anarchy,' by James Robert Baker, a very famous gay writer."

Shatkin pointed out that if the street were renamed, owners would have to change information on their property titles, their return-address labels and all sorts of other documents.

Proponents, he said, argued that the name damages property values, "but I bought my house for $370,000 and now it's worth, like, $900,000."

What's more, he said, changing the street's name to Dickson Lane would only add to regional confusion.

The city of Los Angeles, which surrounds West Hollywood, already has a Dickson Avenue, a Dickson Court, a West Dickson Court, a Dickson Street — and a Dickson Lane.

As for West Hollywood's official procedure for renaming streets, "we don't have one," City Clerk Tom West said.

At the last City Council meeting, he said, members took up a proposal to establish such a procedure but after "discussion about the various issues that are impacted — home ownership, taxes, Social Security checks, maps, transportation, public works, telephone directories" — tabled the matter indefinitely.

Thus, Dicks Street will remain Dicks Street … at least for now.

no. i find it a bit odd. is it creative simply cos students have moved into a area where the majority of inhabitants have much lower socio-economic background?

the (ridiculously over-vaunted) library's kinda nice but i've always wondered whether that money couldn't have gone into building some better council housing. the farmer's market which takes place under it on sunday's is attended almost solely by edgy tourists from east dulwich.

gabbneb calls it clinton.

i thot it was "spiting devil," the dude was spite-ing (?) the devil by swimming across.

further googling says "spitting devil."

'There has been much speculation concerning the origin of the name “Spuyten Duyvil.” Dutch in origin, Spuyten Duyvil can be translated in two ways, depending on the pronunciation. One translation is “Devil’s whirlpool,” and indeed, sections of the creek were sometimes turbulent during high tide. The second interpretation is “to spite the Devil.” This translation was popularized by Washington Irving’s story in which a Dutch trumpeter vowed to swim across the turbulent creek during the British attack on New Amsterdam “en spijt den Duyvil (in spite of the Devil).”'

xpost: if gabb does in fact call hell's kitchen "clinton," he isn't alone -- i know of several other folks who do that, too. but they're out-of-towners.

it's jaw-droppingly gorgeous is what it is. see it from a boat if you can.