Is the creative class ruining urban communities?

[In London:] "We've got lots of new bars ... but those who were born and bred here simply can't afford to live here anymore."

"those doing the gentrifying are fond of elaborate facial hair, artisanal food and retro kitsch."

CNN INTERNATIONAL:

For Dalston and Shoreditch in London, read Williamsburg in New York, Kreuzberg in Berlin, Mission District in San Francisco, Preston in Melbourne and many other formerly working class neighborhoods in cities around the world (with broad regional differences).

According to Loretta Lees, professor of human geography at the University of Leicester, what has happened follows a well worn pattern of urban development.

Creative, young, artistic types are enticed to move into an area by low rents or through encouragement from local councils. As time passes, more people move in attracted by what they see as the aspirational, cool vibe, hoping to become a part of this fabric themselves.

This influx brings in higher earning individuals and increases the local tax base which can lead to improved public services. But it also pushes up the cost of rent, goods and services in the area and eventually house prices too.

While this may be no bad thing for the new arrivals who can largely afford it, many of those who have lived in the area for generations can be priced out.

On This Day II

Different from the previous post on this day, but an admirable woman all the same. Last week I brought you the inimitable Sophie Tucker. Today we honor another loud mouth artiste.

Ethel Agnes Zimmermann was born 16 January 1908 at 26-5 4th Street in Astoria, Queens. She is better know as Ethel Merman. I had no idea about this bit of trivia about her: Though her father had grown up in the Dutch Reform tradition, she grew up in a strict Episcopalian household.
"Let's go on with the show...."

And what a team The Muppets and Merman make in this video clip!

Some of These Days

Sonya Kalish (Соня Калиш), better known as Sophie Tucker, was born 13 January 1886 in Tulchyn, Ukraine. Her family immigrated to the US when she was an infant, where they opened a restaurant. She was singing for tips by 1903. You'll enjoy all of these:

Charles Addams' Hundredth

Charles "Chas" Samuel Addams was born 7 January 1912 in Westfield, New Jersey.

KIEFER & REMBRANDT IN AMSTERDAM

RIJKSMUSEUM:

One of Germany’s most well-known and influential artists, Anselm Kiefer, was invited by the Rijksmuseum to create a work of art inspired by The Night Watch. The result, the spectacular La berceuse (for Van Gogh), for which he was given complete free rein, will be on display in the Rijksmuseum’s Night Watch Gallery in the Philips Wing from 7 May.

Sorry I am missing this. A few years ago there was an Anselm Kiefer exhibition at Montreal's Contemporary Art Museum; I was blown away. Anselm Kiefer is a dark artist, heavily influenced by Germany during WWII. He is one of my favourite artists. Also Anton Corbijn (another favourite) will have an exhibit of his photographs of Kiefer.

Anselm Kiefer, La berceuse, 2010 (detail). Photo Myra May.

Design Inspiration

David Mellor, a thoroughly British designer known chiefly for his cutlery, has died a few days ago.

I like this from his obituary in the Guardian:

Mellor was no mere knife and fork stylist; he understood the behaviour of metals and the physics of tools.

He was in every sense a modern industrial designer, and technologically adept, but his spiritual roots were in the arts and crafts movement and its belief, not so much in work-life balance as in work-life integration. To him, the profession of design "is concerned not just with making objects ... but just as importantly with making choices, with choosing what we use, choosing how to live". There is a special significance in the environments Mellor made for himself, his colleagues and his family (although boundaries were fluid, since life and art and work were inseparable).


When I lived in London and and would hang out in Chelsea, on exiting the Sloane Square tube station: First thing - make a bee-line to David Mellor's shop (take a right, then another right, cross the street) before I did anything else. I have a few sets of the Paris design (shown on the right). Recommended: the company website, a celebration of exquisite craftmanship, is a fine presentation indeed.

Weekend Music: ENRICO MACIAS

In 1972, I had the privilege of seeing Enrico Macias sing in Carnegie Hall. A sold-out performance, it seemed every French-speaker in NYC was there. Get a load of the guitar licks on this song:

Van Gogh’s ear keeps historians busy

From Radio Netherlands:-- Vincent van Gogh did not cut off his own ear - it was his friend and fellow painter Paul Gauguin who did it. That's what two German academics are saying after years of research on the subject. According to historian and novelist Hans Kaufmann and art historian Rita Wildegans, Gauguin conjured up the story of Van Gogh's self-mutilation in order to protect himself.