7.13.2008

from my hometown

These blogs are making me homesick.

NYC Donut Report!! is written by Duane Reade, international donut reporter, because "the donut watch never stops".

Most wmtc readers probably don't know that Duane Reade is the name of a huge drugstore chain in New York City. New Yorkers walk around town carrying stuff in big Duane Reade shopping bags. The store itself is named for two downtown streets. There are more than 250 Duane Reades in New York, and everyone who works in one has a pierced nose.

Anyway, the donut report. It's not that I care very much about donuts. I rarely eat them, and I'm almost always sorry when I do. (I only like the first bite.) But donuts are as integral to the culture of New York as they are to Canada. Kramer didn't spot Joe DiMaggio in a Starbucks.

NYC Donut Report!! captures New York's authentic spirit, something timeless, neither hip nor nostalgic. A little piece of the dirty, misshapen collection of neighbourhoods under the corporate glitz.

In Found in Brooklyn, Lisanne McT, Wanderer and Dilly Dallier, chronicles a similar space. What is found in Brooklyn? It might be a woman's hat, or some graffiti, or the bottom of a pool. The tiny observation that illustrates the whole.

Lisanne's blog makes me feel like I never saw my city, like I missed it all in the 22 years I called it home. That's not true, of course. I was a constant wanderer myself. But every seeker finds different treasure. This blog makes me miss my urban life, however much I love my current suburban one.

Found in Brooklyn links to some excellent blogs that are trying to keep what remains of their authentic city from being paved over and destroyed. Among them are Hotel Chelsea Blog, No Land Grab, Washington Square Blog and Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, but all the blogs on Found In Brooklyn's roll are important. Check out the photos on the sidebar of The C.O.R.D. Blog to see a neighbourhood uprising in action.

Taken together, these blogs document part of what made it easier for me to leave my beloved New York. The City is constantly changing, and often at a bewildering pace. I would never say "it's not what it once was," because it never was that.

So it's not that I wanted the city to stay the same. That would be both futile and completely counter to the spirit of the place. But the nature of the change that's been occurring is all of one type, moving the city in one, seemingly irreversible direction: the homogenization and suburbanization of New York. Cumulatively, it's a great loss.

I didn't mean for this post to end on a sad note. Everyone go eat a donut.

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