DIE HARD YUPPIE SCUM!!
By Chris Flash

[June 13, 2008] Fed up with rising rents, trendy yuppie bars and restaurants driving out affordable local businesses and cultural venues, as well as growing numbers of monied transients who have been displacing long-term low-income residents, more than 100 neighbors and activists of the Lower East Side got together on the evening of June 13 to make it known to inhabitants of yuppie ghettos and denizens of yuppie venues that they are not welcome in our neighborhood.

"Slacktivist" organizer John Penley advertised the demonstration as a "protest march against real estate developers, landlords, yuppie wine bars and Republicans." Accordingly, the first demonstration was at the Bowery Wine Bar, co-owned by actor Bruce Willis, located on East First Street. Aside from catering to a yuppie clientele, the Bowery Wine Bar has hosted meetings for Young Republicans. This dive opened in March on the site of Cuando, a former community center, schoolhouse and squat. The Cuando building was handed over by the city without charge to real estate developers. They in turn demolished Cuando and created a yuppie housing complex called Avalon, which occupies almost an entire city block, between Second Avenue and the Bowery. Rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the Avalon complex starts at $3,795 per month. 

Angry speakers denounced the gentrification and corporatization of the Lower East Side, along with the vacant yuppie scum that come with it. The wine bar customers at first seemed incredulous and amused, but then tried to ignore the anger and taunts directed at them. Demonstrators carried signs reading: "Deport Developers, Not Mexicans," "Die Hard Yuppie Scum," and "Evict Wine Bars, Not Tenants" as they joined musician David Peel in singing "Yuppie Ghetto," loudly shouting "Die Yuppie Scum" at the wine bar.

The next demonstration was at the over-priced John Varvatos fashion boutique, located at 315 Bowery. This storefront was the site of legendary punk rock club CBGBs for 33 years, before being forced by their tax-payer-subsidized landlord to close in 2006 [See SHADOW #51 <http://shadow press.org/landlord_greed_kills_cbgbs.51.html> for the full story–Ed.]

In some twisted form of logic, Varvatos has claimed that by occupying the CBGBs space (paying more than $30,000 per month) and employing a phoney punk decor to sell ugly clothing for hundreds of dollars apiece, he is preserving punk culture! Varvatos has argued that if not for him, the CBGBs space would be taken by a Starbucks or a bank, as if there is a difference. This argument has not fooled angry demonstrators, who blasted the Varvatos store for contributing to the cultural genocide of the Lower East Side. For good measure, a passing double-decker tourist bus was also greeted with shouts of "Fuck You Yuppie Scum" by the crowd.

Heading north on Bowery, the demonstrators stopped at the NYU Dorm at East Third Street. New York University charges the highest tuitions in the city and has been causing gentrification on the Lower East Side and West Village by buying buildings and then evicting long-term businesses and low-income residents. NYU recently announced their ambitious and arrogant "Plan 2031" under which NYU would greatly expand their campus and student housing throughout the Lower East Side, with no regard to the adverse effects their plan will have on the community and local economy. Among NYU's recent accomplishments have been the destruction of the Edgar Allen Poe house on West Third Street in 2001 and the removal of the Bottom Line music club on West Fourth Street in 2004.

After venting their anger at NYU, demonstrators made their way to 47 East Third Street, a 15-unit tenement building where tenants are fighting eviction attempts by their landlords, who claim they want to transform the building into a mansion for themselves. [See the full story in this issue <http://shadowpress.org/third_st_ tenants.53.htm> and in SHADOW #52 <http://shadowpress.org/third_st_tenants.52.htm>–Ed.] The demonstrators promised to keep returning to support the tenants of this building as their court battle continues.

After NYU. demonstrators, whose numbers had almost doubled by then, made their way to Tompkins Square Park by taking the street to march up Avenue A. Cops wisely kept their cool, and there were no arrests. From there, folks found themselves drawn to the Christodora House at East Ninth Street and Avenue B, though it had not been included as part of the demonstration.

The Christodora, built in 1897 as a settlement house for poor immigrants, became a hated symbol of gentrification in the 1980s after it was turned into luxury condominiums for the super-wealthy invading the Lower East Side. At the end of the infamous Tompkins Square police riot, in the early morning hours of August 7, 1988, the Christodora was raided by those who had spent the night facing down rampaging cops indiscriminately beating anyone in their sights, in furtherance of an illegal park curfew. A large potted tree removed from the lobby of the Christodora and tossed into the street was quickly replanted inside Tompkins Square Park. Since then, the Christodora has been a focal point for anger directed at the yuppification of the Lower East Side.

Outside the Christodora, demonstrators sang along with David Peel as some angrily confronted building residents, including Michael Rosen, developer of the Christodora and the Red Square apartment complex on Houston Street. (Rosen lives in a penthouse apartment in the Christodora.)
Rosen got into a heated debate with demonstrators, objecting to being called "Yuppie Scum." Rosen told demonstrators that he contributes to a neighborhood food pantry. This statement did not sit well with those who note that the damage to the neighborhood caused by Rosen's contribution to gentrification cannot be offset by his contribution of a few breadcrumbs thrown to the poor who have not yet been displaced from the Lower East Side.

After the demo, John Penley told the SHADOW that the purpose of the demonstration "was to revive the spirit of the old days for the 20th anniversary of the Tompkins Square riots." He added: "Long-time community residents are feeling threatened by yuppie scum real estate developers and they feel they must fight back or get run out of the neighborhood. Because of that, we can get people back into the streets again, and apparently, we've accomplished that."

[Top photo by Chris Flash; bottom photo by Robert Arihood]