Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul

Essential reading for fans of Jane Jacobs, Joseph Mitchell, Patti Smith, Luc Sante, and Cheap Pierogi —Vanity Fair

An unflinching chronicle of gentrification in the twenty-first century and a love letter to lost New York by the creator of the popular and incendiary blog Vanishing New York.

For generations, New York City has been a mecca for artists, writers, and other hopefuls longing to be part of its rich cultural exchange and unique social fabric. But today, modern gentrification is transforming the city from an exceptional, iconoclastic metropolis into a suburbanized luxury zone with a price tag only the one percent can afford.

A Jane Jacobs for the digital age, blogger and cultural commentator Jeremiah Moss has emerged as one of the most outspoken and celebrated critics of this dramatic shift. In Vanishing New York, he reports on the city’s development in the twenty-first century, a period of hyper-gentrification that has resulted in the shocking transformation of beloved neighborhoods and the loss of treasured unofficial landmarks. In prose that the Village Voice has called a mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit, Moss leads us on a colorful guided tour of the most changed parts of town—from the Lower East Side and Chelsea to Harlem and Williamsburg—lovingly eulogizing iconic institutions as they’re replaced with soulless upscale boutiques, luxury condo towers, and suburban chains.

Propelled by Moss’ hard-hitting, cantankerous style, Vanishing New York is a staggering examination of contemporary urban renewal and its repercussions—not only for New Yorkers, but for all of America and the world.

This landmark work of cultural criticism is both a historical record and a personal polemic, documenting what we lose when we lose New York:

A Polemic Against Hyper-Gentrification: Explore the Bloomberg Way and the neoliberal policies that turned a city for artists and immigrants into a luxury product for the one percent. Firsthand Urban History: Join Moss on a guided tour through the ruins of the Lower East Side, the Bowery, Harlem, and Williamsburg as he eulogizes lost landmarks and legendary haunts. An Attack on Urban Planning: Discover how real estate developers, city planners, and politicians systematically dismantled the city's unique social fabric, from the revanchist city of the 90s to today. A Love Letter to Lost New York: Written in a voice the Village Voice calls a 'mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit,' this is a furious defense of the authentic, rambunctious city of outcasts and dreamers.