Loft Living In Lower Manhattan, Before Gentrification

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You may never have heard of James Wolcott, but the boy sure can write. Especially about New York in the CBGB days of the 1970s. It's a good analog to HBO's "Vinyl".

 "Loft living then wasn’t the luxury alternative that it later became with the rise of SoHo and gentrification with a vengeance in Tribeca and beyond, as lofts became synonymous with airy storage units of flooding sunlight, gleaming bowling-alley hardwood floors, and quirkily amusing, slayingly chic art pieces chosen and arranged just so as tribal taste trophies, a photo layout of a setup perfect to raise a super-race of test-tube babies. Loft living in the mid-seventies was still in its pioneer post-factory, rat-haven phase, the elevators lowering and lifting like a large, groaning apprehension (as if operated by Marley’s chain-hanging ghost from A Christmas Carol), the thick-piped plumbing still in its early Soviet phase, these industrial garrets too hot in summer, too cold in winter, but spacious enough to carry a bowling-alley echo.”

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Excerpt From: James Wolcott's “Lucking Out.” Doubleday, 2011-10-25. iBooks.

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Ground Control To Major Tom

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Although we were contemporaries, and shared many of the same musical roots, I was never particularly affected by David Bowie's music, even though I understand the major impact he had within the rock and roll universe, and within the culture at large.

But I have been quite moved today at how deeply his death yesterday at 69 has affected so many of my friends.

So in order to show respect in my own way, I'm sending out this portion of David's "Space Oddity" to Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, ahead of next Saturday's NFL Divisional Playoff game against Kansas City:

Ground Control to Major Tom

Ground Control to Major Tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, Four, Three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (Two, One, Liftoff)

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

I wish for TB12 a better outcome than Major Tom experienced. 

And RIP, David Bowie.