Yuppie scum

Dismembering Roxbury

adamg — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 08:03:25 -0500

Somehow, I missed the Sunday Globe's report from the latest front in the gentrification wars: An entire paean to development on "the other side" of Massachusetts Avenue that only mentions the dreaded R word once, and then in passing.

... It used to be that Massachusetts Avenue acted as a dividing line. But now developers are breaching the bulwark, chasing opportunities in the neighborhood's cheaper -- and more rundown -- real estate, laying foundations for upscale projects in the direction of nearby Dudley Square. ...

Oh, yeah, Dudley Square. The heart of the West South End.

Thankfully, for those of us too busy with just Parade and the comics (oh and City Weekly, of course!) - or for people just parachuting in from Mars, the Weekly Dig is here to dissect the coverage:

... Look what a few $900,000 condos can do to a neighborhood's name - and history! ... We can't wait until somebody decides it's time to rebrand Dudley as D-Square.

Death to Yuppies threat spreads to Cambridge

adamg — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 15:33:05 -0400

You may recall the hubbub last year when somebody went around Davis Square marking up things with "Kill a Yuppie." Jesse Kanson-Benanav reports "Kill a Yuppie" has now popped up in Cambridge - on a Weekly Dig box near Cambridge College:

... To be quite brash, the gentrification in Cambridge has long been a reality and has not seen the same intensity as in Somerville in recent years. Is this arising in response to a particular situation like in Somerville, or is it just a spill-over/copycat from that dispute?

Keepin' it real on da Cape

adamg — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 11:52:58 -0400

Tea Partay video.

Via Queen Dee.

Boston wouldn't be Boston without a middle class

adamg — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:54:50 -0400

Mike Ball begins to lay out the case for an un-Manhattanized Boston, i.e., one that still has a sizable middle class instead of a jumble of the very rich and the very poor:

... Ironically for the wealthy, their domination of the housing and employment markets can backfire. A city without the broad base of economic classes lends itself both to crime and to competition for civic resources. The mired poor require more, and more diverse, services, further taxing the city and taking resources from the activities and infrastructure that the wealthy want. ...

Sharon Gartenberg considers the condo-ized North End:

... Economics may make a high-end condo development more appealing than a small grocery store in the short term, but the city will lose something very special (not to mention lots of tourist dollars) if it allows the North End's special ambiance to morph into just another neighborhood of condo-dwellers.

Somerville police find it hard to believe only one person hates yuppies

adamg — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:19:20 -0400

The Somerville News has the story behind the arrest of the "Kill a yuppie" graffiti sprayer:

... But Cutter could very well have had a partner or partners in crime. Police are still looking into who else may have played a role in the anti-yuppie graffiti. ...

The new Kenmore Square makes sense

adamg — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:41:53 -0400

Mike may pine for the Kenmore Square of yore, but Mats says there are some good reasons to yuppify it:

... It's not that I'm rah-rah about the New Kenmore Square, but I think us Kenmorians have to take one for the team here: Making Kenmore Square ridiculously attractive to parents of prospective BU students is just about the best-use one can imagine for K-Square, from a city perspective. You miss the grittiness of the Rat? Take the T to Allsgone/Crimeghton. ...

The new Kenmore Square? Blecch!

adamg — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:01:36 -0400

Mike is getting sick of adulatory puff pieces about the new Kenmore Square:

... OK, show of hands - does anyone who actually lives in this neighborhood think Kenmore Square has improved? Did anyone without a vested interest in the new development really believe this was a "down-on-its-heels" neighborhood?

Personally, I miss the Deli Haus. The Rat. The old Cornwall's. And never mind the IHOP, I miss Charlieâ€™s Cafeteria ...

Gaiety gone

adamg — Wed, 18 May 2005 10:27:33 -0400

Spatch mourns the loss of the Gaiety Theatre:

I heard a ghost today in Chinatown. She was singing the last song she would sing, and she knew it. She didn't notice me and I don't think I was meant to hear her final performance but I heard it just the same. Anybody could have heard it, really, but they would have had to listen for it. I listened. She was a bit out of practice, as she had been silently entombed and left, undisturbed for decades, behind a brick facade surrounded by the dregs of Boston's Combat Zone. The wrecking ball and jackhammers had come, though. Her space was needed for a tower of bland, soulless, expensive Residential Solutions for bland, soulless people who can afford it, and the planners had come through and fudged a few zoning loopholes and probably broken a few more laws in the process to take what they wanted. I visited her grave, now nearly fully demolished, as their construction equipment continued apace on the first new block of buildings. ...

The Southie renaissance

adamg — Fri, 13 May 2005 20:54:04 -0400

Jonelle notes the fancy-shmancification of South Boston:

... Give us your yuppies, your I-bankers, your huddled day traders yearning to drink lattes. The twenty-something single urbanites of your overpriced shore. Send these, the French-cuffed, well-coiffed to me. And don't be alarmed when the locals throw rocks through your windows.

Finally, some Yuppie scum gets his doo

adamg — Wed, 11 May 2005 10:19:03 -0400

Jay notes that even owners of $300,000 German cars need to watch where they walk and feed the meter when they park on Beacon Hill.