Rivington Street

What happened to Rivington Street and how long have I been gone that this street where I cross Delancey has changed so fast from neighborhood mom and pop stores to the chi shi cafe, bar and lounge scene that it now appears to be. And the articles on gentrification in New York must be endless by now, to where the yuppies, or is it young urban professionals, can't even afford the rent. And does this street reflect the state of New York and the rest of the world when it comes to gentrification and genocide with its population and change of real estate scenery. And I want to say some sort of prayer in memory of for this street in the Lower East Side of that City of New York. As this street looks like a wrecking ball has went through it within the past day or seemingly a week. And every decade in New York seems to have its era when it comes to real estate. And that apartment from 1960 that was $160.00 is now $1,600.00. And the 99. cents stores are now $9.99 cents stores. And there are now skyscrapers where nothing has stood before. And places where farmland once stood, are now concrete jungles. It is no longer the year 1800 anymore. And there seems to be what seems like boat loads of people to accompany this genocide change of scenery in the real estate development scene. And what is genocide anyway? And the only thing constant is change. And is the world overpopulated with that j bell curve thing, to where there are now 6.66 billion people on planet earth and the population is expected to double in the next twenty years or something like that, resulting in urban sprawl and over development. And what is urban sprawl anyway? Is that a whole another blog entry. And so I thought to post this poem:

Long Live the Lower East Side
Long Live The Revolution of the Pseudo Anarchist Hippy Bohemian Squatter Revolutionary Lower East Side In Alphabet City where God Bless America becomes God F.. America and red white and blue becomes red and black and where the capitalist capitalize off the capitalism of the capital.
With your gentrified glorified tenements and artists coffee lounge lounges riddled with the blood of the long lost past that had the horses running through it, the pigs running round it, and the helicopters hoovering over it. The bandshell that stood as a symbol of freedom for all long torn down, lost and forgotten. NO POLICE STATE, NO HOUSING NO PEACE, F.. THE CURFEW, FREE THE LAND, free that park, that park everywhere. Freedom and utopia a thing of the past.
So now in Alphabet City I walk down your streets conformed to the conformity of the conformed and the conformist. Class War Class War on the poor run into the river and running to the river.
Flight of fight, sink or swim. Can you swim or will you die. Your skeletons of the war torn survivors walking the streets, your ghosts and their spirits scattered abroad and the ashes of your people who have come and gone in the struggle, of the struggle, from the struggle and the ashes of your people some dead some alive and some who have survived to shed their blood and skin and to tell the tale and conform to this thing called conformity.
Yeah, first it was them and then it was me. Whose gonna be left when big brother comes. Naked I have come from my mothers womb and naked shall I return thither to the dust where I come from.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Long Live the Lower East Side.