There Goes the Neighborhood
Photo by kluv32, under a Creative Commons license
I used to love Jersey City, a quaint hodgepodge of an enclave where cutting edge abutted the antiquated, and peals of church bells dinged the hours on the hour. Well, alright, a part of me still does, but the neighborhood keeps changing on us, subtle and chameleon-like, until one day I peeked out of the window and barely recognized the new thing it’s become. Condos are being erected—huge concrete phalluses that soar into the sky and obscure the waterfront. The musty secondhand bookshop moved, then the bakery, which always had fresh, piping-hot peach pastries and melt-in-your-mouth chocolate croissants. Our favorite tea shop shuttered. The following month, the Chinese restaurant that was practically an extension of our home changed owners. (The food just doesn’t taste the same. Plus, they’ve repainted the walls a nauseating salmon.)
The lovely lesbian couple upstairs bought a house in Journal Square, so we don’t see them anymore, nor do we hear their yapping Lhasa Apso, Lola, or feel her wet nose nuzzle into our hands. A man and woman now live upstairs; over the course of a year, they’ve became more than roommates, adopted a pair of kittens, and have loud sex. We think they must wear combat boots and herd rhinos the way they stomp about at night. Our landlord and his wife—as well as his Indonesian Chinese mother-in-law, who always pressed containers of leftovers into our hands—moved out from the downstairs apartment to find room for their growing brood. In their place, two nondescript girls who never say hello, and a crass smoker who tosses his garbage into the recycling bin and never picks up his mail. If this is “progress,” then I think I’ve had just as much as I can stomach.
Oh, and we’re getting a STARBUCKS.
