OK -
About this whole DIY debate.
I just had this conversation with some company I know the other day:
MZ - "Every cool person in DC will be at this party because there are so few cool people in DC."
Company - "Now that we are adults I didn't think that people were cool anymore, isn't "cool" for teenagers and young people?"
MZ - "You are just used to DC. DC does not have cool people because all the cool people went to live in other places."
Company - "Where do the cool people go?"
MZ - "NYC, LA, Austin, Boulder are cool people destinations. City's who's local economies run partly or mostly on fashion, media, arts and culture. DC's economy runs on the Ferderal Government and the Federal Government can never do accurately described as cool."
And
DC is still a global city which does give it some advantages over a Baltimore. It attracts people and money which are both important to cool.
http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/
Is an internet magazine that some people I know are affiliated with. It is DC, DIY and cool.
The successful retail redevelopment(c. 1990s) of Chicago's Wicker Park benefited from having a large stock of aged LARGE buildings--they were converted to loft condos and increased the density of the neighborhood.
Logan Square's Milwaukee Avenue rents are all over the map, but go at least as high as $35/sf--outrageous given its current condition. Unfortunately the owners also have not been properly maintaining the buildings over the years so that they are plagued with leaks and such. I haven't done the math, but those for sale also seem exorbitantly high.
of course- none of you folks would ever guess that Georgetown - not too long ago- had a large grouping of warehouse & factory buildings that were abandoned for many years.I use to play in them and wander around there as a kid.Never assume that because a city looks or appears as it does today means that it has always been that way.All of these buildings were fixed up and converted to office /other usage by the late 1970's.
w -- We still do have a large stocks of warehouse buildings. And of course, those large warehouses in Georgetown are what attracted the high number of creative companies that still are in Georgetown. Many ad agencies and design firms and the new BU-CDIA is in Georgetown. Not to mention all the architecture firms. All remnants of those large industrial buildings (that still exist) in Georgetown.
BYT makes me want to puke. They aren't creators. They are consumers. It's part of the whole -- let's make DC like the worst parts of LA filtered through something we read on some other website.
We aren't creating relevant cultural forms here. No one in Philly or even Baltimore is trying to copy our sound/look/art -- which means that we aren't cultural creators. As such, we have zero relevance culturally. We still act in DC like there is a boundary between high and low art. That debate was settled 20 years ago in every other city. (Hint: there isn't.)
Contrast this to the 1970s and and 1980s when our punk and go-go and graffiti were at the top of their game in DC. People elsewhere were paying attention. That was followed by one of the best urban dance music scenes in the country, everyone of any importance seems to have left by the mid to late 1990s. First it was Baltimore they were going to and then NY, SF, LA.
And it's true, that cost of living is not helping us. Especially when you consider it's not that much cheaper to live here than in NY. If at all which is insane on so many levels. (Let's see. $1800 a month to live in the East Village or Dupont?)
The moneyed BYT crowd are consumers of culture, not originators.
Now contrast this to Philly, where I have good friends, in their mid-20s. One is a very original screen printer and gallery owner, the other works at corporate Urban and is an illustrator. Both have international reputations. They also have been able to afford to buy their own row house -- on basically the income from their art/design work.
I agree that Philly is really a major & overlooked art center- but Christopher- do not count out other forms of visual art than contemporary forms. DC is still a leader.
You are right about warehouses also- they exist in parts of the city where many are not aware they exist.
We have also lost a lot because of the rents and expensive real estate here in DC- and also becuase the city is hell bent on providing corporate welfare[ TIFinancing] to bandit developers and at the same time they chase out loyal citizen entrepreneurs like the Wash Sculpture Center w/o offerring any kind of relocation or even attempting to keep them in the city. They need to get with it- sports are not the only worthy cultural activity.
Whoa! Chris is mad. Yo old-man, check your blood pressure, I don't want to to have a stroke and die.
BYT is an internet magazine. It is about "the scene"! It is DIY and so are many of the things they write about - be it dance nights, art shows, books, bands or theatre performances. A lot about any scene is, exactly that, BEING SEEN. If no one saw your friends in Philly make a turd in the gallery can we call it art? I don't think so. We wouldn't have fashion or art or media if people didn't have a desire to get noticed.
I think that BYT adds a lot to DC. It makes people feel that things are actually going on here, which is honestly pretty hard to do. DC is fully of lots of super boring people, not all of them, but most of them.
And by the way, if you didn't get the memo - Philly is for people that cannot make it in NYC! That's who lives there, makes art there, has a band there, whatever, people that cannot make it in NYC. Now, I don't have problems with low-cost of living towns, I really like them actually, BUT if you're a culture maker on the east coast of the USA - you live and work in NYC, unless you can't afford it, then you move to Philly or Baltimore. Sorry, but it's the truth. They are very 2nd tier.
MZ- you are my pal- but you really do not know what you are talking about here.Your knowledge of art and culture seems to be restricted to what you are specifically aware of- and not what takes a little more to get to know.Actually- if you took the trouble to look closer at Philly- you would notice, for instance, that the city is one of the most supportive towards artists- and corporate support is there also.Philly has more professional artists murals than any city in NAmerica- and has a much more elite and sophisticated painter & sculptor crowd than NYC ever had- period- it was a major international art center when NYC was a town with a good view.Look out at what you say here .
MZ when you are in Minneapolis you will be there one winter and be crying to get back home.Dont worry- we'll still be here- not all of us are transients in DC!!
W -
I like winter! I used to live in Montreal and I am reurning to the North. Nothing makes me feel like more of a man than walking 2 miles to work everyday when it's 20 below.
Bike culture is good there. Have you been? You'd be pleasently surprised. The Twin Cities are pretty much everything one can ask a city to be.
Anyway, I am only leaving DC, not the Rebuilding Place family. I love all you dumb-nuts and numb-skulls.
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