The Early Gentrifier: Weaving a Nostalgia Narrative on the Lower East Side

Abstract

Focusing on the consequences of social and cultural displacement from commercial gentrification, this article examines the perspective of “early gentrifiers” decades after they moved into the neighborhood. Based on ethnographic data collected on the Lower East Side—a gentrified neighborhood with new bars—this article analyzes how new nightlife triggered early gentrifiers to weave a “nostalgia narrative” from their experiences. They use this narrative to construct a new local identity as the neighborhood's symbolic “owners,” which helps them in their collective action against bars. Their narrative, however, contains internal contradictions that reveal several issues with their new identity. I argue that a cultural analysis of early gentrifiers reveals significant social configurations in gentrified neighborhoods and informs us of the relationship between ideology and action.