Before It Disappears, More Brief Moments

Goglog said most of the 14th Street stretch had been bought by a developer and wouldn't be there much longer, Vanishing New York passed on the news that Applebees and Johnny Rockets were probably headed to Coney Island, and NYU continued to think it owns public land.

There was a story I grew up with, passed around the Lower East Side.  It had happened. In Brooklyn.

A village had been condemned to death by the Nazis.  The villagers picked one person to escape and go tell their story so their deaths would not be in vain.  The man they picked somehow made his way to safety and then to America.  Relatives of the villagers were in Brooklyn and he came and for three days he told the story of the village, the murders, the Nazis.  At the end of the three days, the man died.

We are much luckier than those villagers.   When you don't get shot, sometimes you get to go on to find new ways and create new lives.  But, sometimes, even if you don't get shot, destruction strikes.  I do not want to die after telling the story of my village headed to destruction.  I don't want my village to die either.  But, now it seems more important than ever the story gets told.

Avenue A Bus looks at 14th Street.

Some things have continued on.

The sunset over 37th Street

Allen and Grand.

Back staircases in walk-ups


Real New Yorkers.

But some things didn't.

St. Vincent Hospital, now becoming luxury condos,

Florence.

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