Ah, lament I shall for a moment, the halcyon days of my youth. 282 Bleecker, a hot (in the summer), cold (water, the boiler never seemed to work), 2-apartment (shout out to Peter my roommate, who met his one true love, the sparkly Miriam when she moved in downstairs), tar-roofed (illegal parties!), walk-up building just shy of 7th avenue. These were the mid-‘90’s… days of garbage piled up each morning on the curb, Faicco’s and the original, pre-upgrade-and-relocation Murray’s down the block, and nothing more upscale than the odd early-American antique furniture a few blocks west which had probably been there forever. No Ralph Lauren store, no $35-an-entree restos, no couture boutiques. About the only “luxury” you could find was the $2.00 cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery, but even that fascination faded quickly when – post “Sex and the City feature” – the lines started running down the block for a frosted treat that Carrie and her friends supposedly ate. Well, that’s all changed now, hasn’t it. Slowly at first, around the time I was moving out of my $400/month room (believe it) with a window overlooking the constant 100-decibel din of Bleecker and the never-ending parade of double-decker bus tourists rumbling through their loudspeaker-enhanced turn off of 7th Ave. Then more quickly, as one of the last truly grungy and rough-edged thoroughfares of the old Village gave way ever more quickly during the financial-shenanigan-fueled excesses of the “early Ought’s”. And now what are we left with? A street so suddenly synonymous with too-quickly-flush-with-cash spending that Ralph himself now offers a $500 “Bleecker Loafer”. The name alone is making countless Beats, hippies, and Peggy-Guggenheim-era Ashcan School artists snort derisively as they turn over in their graves…. Ah, the good old days of my broke younger years, gone but not forgotten.
