Change is inevitable. And yet, I still resist change in my neighborhood. 3 small businesses (mostly discount stores of the variety shop been there forever type) have closed in the last few months along with a beloved Italian restaurant-my favorite pizza joint in the neighborhood. After 10 years in New York, I guess I am really and truly embracing Colson Whitehead's statement " You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now". Every time someone visits, I'm like, that used to be...;been here too long.

I'm sorry. It's never fun when your favorite places close down. :(

it's not only a New York thing, i think. i hate that the awesome newsstand/video store on the next block is gone after 17 years. but there's also places that are gone that were Crap and everyone was happy to wave goodbye. so i dunno. i don't *think* i'm biased against new places only because they're new. but then that's the nature of it, isn't it?

Ansonia, that's totally it. I think most vividly for me when I am showing friends aroudn NY, is St. Matk's place, they see it as it is now, but I see layers, UI see the past and the presetnt togehte and still mourn the past, ad I cant quite tk in what is ther now.

In my own neighborhood it is the rapid pace of change. Sure the neighborhood had turnover before, but it was one mom and pop store replaced by another. Now, the mom and pop stores lose their leases and vast cavernous spaces appear, to be filled be yet another bank or chain drugstore, oh just what I needed. The places that are closing are the character of the neighborhood and provide me with real services and they are being replaced with widgets. On the flip side of change is the rapid growth of small businesses owned by a younger generation that is catering to a different and more upscale market than the neighborhood has in the past.