I have come to realize that in the 70s we sought refuge in the East Village not to escape famine violence or economic misfortune, but the repression of America’s White Majority.
We were welcomed by the poor, befriended by drug dealers, and found solace in the warmth of exile in a neighborhood burning building by building.
The punks, poets, dancers, actresses, junkies et al helped save the East Village and maybe all cities by showing the distant young the beauty of decay.
The Lower East Side was our city and will always belong to us in the Era of Errors.