Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle

Dear John Letter to the Lower East Side

Posted: December 28, 2009 at 6:18 am

In the New York Times N.Y./Region section, author John Vorwald published a Dear John letter to the Lower East Side.  It is one resident’s farewell to the neighborhood he called home for six years. So long, dude.

Dear Lower East Side,

I don’t know how to say this. It’s over. For years I defended you. I stood by you — faithful to a fault. When people said you were dirty or unkempt, I called it character. When they said you were running with a shady crowd and staying out too late, I said it was a phase. And when they shook their heads and said you’d sold out, I’d say you’d come back around. But I was wrong…

…Then they came — your new friends.

You gussied yourself up with shiny new hardware: Thor, Fat Baby, Spitzer’s. Hordes of banker boys in J. Press checked shirt/chino uniforms and manicured necklines swarmed to you faster than to the promise of a government bailout. They enjoyed sausage-party dinners at Schiller’s (“It’s like Pastis, but edgy!”), used winter as a verb and eyed sun-speckled Germans and Australians “on holiday…”