Description
Book SynopsisOnce known for slum-like conditions in its immigrant and working-class neighborhoods, New York City's downtown now features luxury housing, chic boutiques and hotels, and, most notably, a vibrant nightlife culture. While a burgeoning bar scene can be viewed as a positive sign of urban transformation, tensions lurk beneath, reflecting the social con
Trade Review"Using bars as a barometer for gentrification, Ocejo explores the dynamics of change on New York City's Bowery, once a working-class neighborhood best known for its cheap hotels and skid-row denizens... The lens on gentrification is unique, and the study contributes to a thriving body of work that explores the conflicts that emerge in formerly downtrodden neighborhoods when luxury housing, restaurants catering to a well-to-do crowd, and evolving concepts of quality of life displace long-term residents... The strongly grounded analysis is enlivened by many interviews and casual conversations, illustrative of the hours of research and observation that informed the narrative and attest to the author's commitment to the project."--Choice "Through this snapshot of several years in Bowery, Ocejo reveals much about meaning, power, and a specific kind of neighborhood change, happening (or happening soon) in an upscaling community near us all."--Zandria F. Robinson, City & Community "Beautifully written... Empirically thick and theoretically stimulating analysis, a welcome contribution, useful for students, scholars, and a broader audience, that helps to address the role and relevance that commercial transformations have in the processes of urban change."--Magda Bolzoni, Sociologica "Ocejo is meticulous in the breadth and depth of his ethnographic data. By providing historical context, in-depth interviews, and lively ethnographic vignettes that weave together throughout the book, he provides us with both a diachronic and a synchronic overview of the urban nightlife within these three neighborhoods... Upscaling Downtown does what great urban ethnography does: it richly details the specificities and uniqueness of particular places, while simultaneously provoking us to consider larger social processes, in this case the forging of local community and identity amid the changing social-cultural-economic consequences of gentrification."--Black Hawk Hancock, Social Forces
Table of ContentsPREFACE IX INTRODUCTION Night and Day 1 CHAPTER 1 The Bowery and Its Bars 19 CHAPTER 2 Growing Nightlife Scenes 54 CHAPTER 3 Weaving a Nostalgia Narrative 86 CHAPTER 4 Entrepreneurial Spirits 117 CHAPTER 5 Regulating Nightlife Scenes 149 CHAPTER 6 The Limits of Local Democracy 181 CONCLUSION Upscaling New York 209 METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX Studying the Social Ecosystem of Bars 221 NOTES 227 REFERENCES 245 INDEX 253
