Inside Roosevelt Island’s newest contradiction: a doctor’s office becomes a dispensary while the state agency next door pays rent to its own landlord—and residents choke on the dust of “progress.”
Your writing is both incisive and poetic. That first paragraph--wow! As for the entire post, I am infuriated on your behalf.
I no longer have any ties to RI, except whatever the opposite of nostalgia is. My mother moved there in 1977 and stayed a decade or so, but I was in college by then and lived at 510 only the Summer of Sam. The construction was bleak and cheesy. There was a "wrong side of the tracks" stigma for those who saw Big Allis rather than the UES through their windows. What felt even then like corruption permeated all local decisions.
But when my mother died last year, I mentally returned to RI when writing her obituary. She ran a newspaper there, The Island View, from 1978-81. I have since discovered several excellent, dedicated journalists covering the current days on that complicated enclave in the East River, much changed since the '70s and '80s, and yet somehow not so different.
Laura, thank you for this, both for the kind words and for sharing your mother’s story. The Island View helped build the foundation that voices like Eleanor Rivers now stand on. She’s living your mother’s story today, quietly documenting the same tensions that have always defined this island.
Independent press is a dying breed, but your restack gave me a real moment of joy. For that, I’m deeply grateful.
Your writing is both incisive and poetic. That first paragraph--wow! As for the entire post, I am infuriated on your behalf.
I no longer have any ties to RI, except whatever the opposite of nostalgia is. My mother moved there in 1977 and stayed a decade or so, but I was in college by then and lived at 510 only the Summer of Sam. The construction was bleak and cheesy. There was a "wrong side of the tracks" stigma for those who saw Big Allis rather than the UES through their windows. What felt even then like corruption permeated all local decisions.
But when my mother died last year, I mentally returned to RI when writing her obituary. She ran a newspaper there, The Island View, from 1978-81. I have since discovered several excellent, dedicated journalists covering the current days on that complicated enclave in the East River, much changed since the '70s and '80s, and yet somehow not so different.
Laura, thank you for this, both for the kind words and for sharing your mother’s story. The Island View helped build the foundation that voices like Eleanor Rivers now stand on. She’s living your mother’s story today, quietly documenting the same tensions that have always defined this island.
Independent press is a dying breed, but your restack gave me a real moment of joy. For that, I’m deeply grateful.