street notes: April 2009 Archives

This sign advertises a new building going up on East 11th street. What I want to know is: What does it mean to be "eco-indulgent"? 

This block of East 11th used to be pretty scruffy but now, clearly, it's on its way to gentrification, just like the rest of the East Village. Given the history of the East Village, though, should we also think of the squatters who used to live here as "eco-indulgent," because they pretty much lived off the grid? What about the occupants of the tent city that used to occupy a big swath of Tompkins Square Park?

Eco-indulgent. Is that like flying on a private plane to a fund-raising concert for environmental awareness? Or buying the organic grapes flown in to Whole Foods from Chile?

But aren't indulgences the first things we get rid of when it's time to pinch pennies?

Maybe that means the new eco-indulgent will look more like the old East Village: the toothless guy slowly going through the trash to find bottle-deposit bottles?