Forging the link between culture and real estate: Urban policy and real estate development

In the midst of artists’ and musicians’ selfpromotion and hype, the social and built environment of the East Village was further objectified in representations as a backdrop of a flourishing downtown cultural renaissance. In Steven Spielberg’s 1987 film Batteries Not Included, which was filmed in Loisaida, tiny robotic beings from outer space help a group of distraught residents fight against the demolition of their tenement by developers. The film’s happy ending suggests a humane form of urban restructuring in which minorities and Whites, rich and poor, and old-timers and newcomers coexist harmoniously in a pluralist urban landscape. Other media coverage presented experimental cultural forms as an awakening and salvation from the years of neighborhood decline and decay. The blocks between Avenues A and D that had constituted Loisaida became known as “Alphabet City” in the more playful mainstream media representations. The real estate sector brought into the image of decay an image of danger, seediness, and the mystique of “living on the edge, " at the same time its investment ventures sought to displace it.1 In retail, restaurants, and other commercial space, the area’s rawness was cleverly packaged as suspense, intrigue, and adventure for those who imagined their visit to the area as an outing to the underworld. Bernard’s, a restaurant located on the corner of Avenue C and East Ninth Street, specialized in French organic cuisine and catered to the uptown advertising executive crowd, whose chauffeur-driven limousines were parked out front. The corner of Avenue C and East Ninth Street was also an outdoor drug bazaar where crack cocaine was primarily sold. What went on inside Bernard’s and what happened outside were related as patrons consumed a “glamour of poverty” along with their food.