I'm a 22-year resident of Tribeca (my entire life). I remember the days where my father taught me to ride my bike in empty lots on Greenwich Street, when I attended PS 234 in a class of 23, when every inch of Washington Market Park wasn't covered in protective foam padding. To those of you moving here, it might seem "cute" and "trendy" but to the thousands of us in IPN - the ones who have withstood the abuse and harassment of the management - this is our home.

I am torn apart by the thought that I will never be able to move back into the neighborhood in which I spent my childhood. I will never be able to afford the rent so that I can remain near my family members downtown (9 generations - 7 on the Lower East Side, 2 in Tribeca). And why' Because someone with a degree from NYU or a new job on Wall Street decides they want a cool zip code.

Don't come to IPN. Don't move to Tribeca. The gentrification of my home has brought nothing but people who only see the area as a novelty and bring nothing constructive to it.

PS: Any one else remember the days before Gee Whiz sold $8 hamburgers'

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/12/2007
Afraid of progress, not! We are middle income people who can't afford the increases that this new billionaire landlord has continuously imposed on us, without mentioning the harassment of no heat-water due to so called "emergency repairs", when in reality he is renovating apartments. Additionally, the illegal immigrants he has working here at all odd hours disturbing our rest and our peace into late in the evenings and on weekends. I am for progress, but not at the expense of one's sanity and exploitation.
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/12/2007
Oh my goodness - the problem with you yuppies is you seem to think this neighborhood was nothing before you got here. See, before you stumbled upon our neighborhood we were perfectly self-sufficient. We had a grocery store, an elementary school, parks, a health food store (Commodities, anyone?) and even a pizza place. That's all we needed, all we wanted. Contrary to popular belief, Tribeca wasn't some cesspool before you found it. All you yuppies brought with you were boutiques, expensive furniture stores and pricey restaurants - hardly the types of thing a neighborhood needs. You can keep your sanitized notion of what a city should be - I don't mind clapping to scare the rats away if it means I can afford to live in the neighborhood in which I was raised. Face the facts. You "yuppies" HAVE ruined the neighborhood. If only you could have seen it before. But I wouldn't expect you to understand - so many of you suburbanites who like to play at being "big city folk" think Manhattan was a hellhole until you brought us gentrification. You DON'T love this neighborhood. You and others like you have turned the neighborhood into what you love - a suburb in the city. If it wasn't for my family and people like us you wouldn't even know what Tribeca was. If that's what you want, go back to the suburbs and enjoy your clean streets and high property values there.
From: heavenk	Date: 05/10/2007
P.S. Don't call me out on the spelling errors, I honestly just can't type well when I am in a rush and fired up about a topic. Well, anonymous, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. You can have the rats and I will take my Whole Foods.
From: carbineM4	Date: 06/07/2008
Amen! I moved to Harrison Street in 1982 when I was 11, and remember playing ball on a deserted Greenwich St after school. I have watched the steady and constant erosion of the area for years, and I agree that the powers that be are pushing the lower and middle income people right out of the area. I would NEVER move back. The neighborhood has completely lost all of it's character and charm.
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/03/2008
I AGREE. the yuppies have ruined our neighborhood. i do remember commodoties and what about socrates diner. Gee Whiz is way too expensive now. I am all for progress but has anyone seen one women who wasnt wheeling two children and pregnant again. And the level of arogance from the newbies. F you and all of your money. We loved tribeca the way it was before it was ruined. And Deniro did nothing for tribeca. it was a great area before he got here. and he left 9/11/01.
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/14/2008
DeNiro is the worst thing to happen to Tribeca. Everything he has "given" to this neighborhood is for newbies or tourists. Expensive restaurants, hotels and film festivals are not necessary. Besides, the guy is a royal -------. Ask any Tribeca resident who has had contact with him. Well, too bad it's too late now. The neighborhood is another boring, homogenized suburb filled with the super rich and the young whose super rich parents can pay their rent. There's nothing left for New Yorkers and normal people. I'll always have fond memories of playing on empty cobblestone streets, feeling the wind blowing off the Hudson with no super tall buildings to block the view of BPC, watching the red light on the top of the WTC antenna fade out and in outside my bedroom window. It's too bad it all only exists in memory now.
From: italy1	Date: 12/25/2008
Deniro Destroyed Tribeca. Then he has the nerve to say on the American Express tv commercials that his mission is to rebuild lower Manhattan! I wonder if it has anything to do with him being partners with the MYRIAD group and their many restaurants in Tribeca! He has the gall to try copyright and trademark the name Tribeca, and be paid if someone tries to use it. Who is he does he think that maybe he is Columbus and that he discovered the TRIangle BElow CAnal! So long to this BUM. Stay on the upper westside in your $25 million dollar apartment. To all the interlopers who are invading Tribeca now, you are not needed or wanted here. Don't TRY BECA But TRY SOMEWHERE ELSE!

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