St. Mark's Starbucksed
We knew it was coming, but still. To stroll out of Tompkins Square Park on a hot summer evening earlier this week and see a Starbucks, smack on the corner of St. Mark's and Avenue A, well, it was shocking.
And yet not shocking enough.
To say it doesn't belong there feels right, but "there" isn't there anymore. New York recedes into the past.
Our old pizza place long gone.
Same corner, 2011, Google Maps
And all that came before.
So continues the devolution of authentic to mass-produced, local to globalized, mom-and-pop to corporate monoculture. Call it whatever you want, just don't call it "alive."
Same corner, 1980s, photo by Brooke Smith
How did it begin?
Starbucks was already on Astor Place when they sued local East Village shop Little Rickie in 1999 for selling stickers that changed the words on the Starbucks Coffee logo to say FUCK OFF. Starbucks also sued a number of other local businesses for distributing the stickers, including Alt Coffee on Avenue A. Said the owner of Alt to the Times, "New York City is being mallified and when you start to sterilize things and limit choices, people in the East Village don't like it."
But the people in the East Village have changed since 1999. And the new people like it very much.
Starbucks has 307 locations in the city. (Make that 308.) There’s one every 5.5 blocks in Manhattan. And Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has said he gets many emails from New Yorkers asking for more, more, more.
And yet not shocking enough.
To say it doesn't belong there feels right, but "there" isn't there anymore. New York recedes into the past.
Our old pizza place long gone.
Same corner, 2011, Google Maps
And all that came before.
So continues the devolution of authentic to mass-produced, local to globalized, mom-and-pop to corporate monoculture. Call it whatever you want, just don't call it "alive."
Same corner, 1980s, photo by Brooke Smith
How did it begin?
Starbucks was already on Astor Place when they sued local East Village shop Little Rickie in 1999 for selling stickers that changed the words on the Starbucks Coffee logo to say FUCK OFF. Starbucks also sued a number of other local businesses for distributing the stickers, including Alt Coffee on Avenue A. Said the owner of Alt to the Times, "New York City is being mallified and when you start to sterilize things and limit choices, people in the East Village don't like it."
But the people in the East Village have changed since 1999. And the new people like it very much.
Starbucks has 307 locations in the city. (Make that 308.) There’s one every 5.5 blocks in Manhattan. And Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has said he gets many emails from New Yorkers asking for more, more, more.
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