From Bleecker to Ludlow – Change Documented Through Song 

When writing about a specific place at a specific time, one manages to preserve that specific time in the art they create, whether they mean to or not. In the case of “Bleecker Street” and “Ludlow St.,” the time and place in which these songs were written are so strongly connected that if you were to visit these streets today, you may not recognize them.

“Bleecker Street” by Simon and Garfunkel and “Ludlow St.” by Julian Casablancas – although 45 years separate these two songs, they share a strikingly pessimistic view, albeit in very different capacities; while “Bleecker Street” focuses on the situation in 1964, “Ludlow St.” views the change occurring in the area and what has changed over time. By examining these two songs, we can see how the area looked and was regarded in 1964, and what has changed as of 2009.

Bleecker Street and Ludlow Street are less than a third of a mile away from each other and each has a distinct historical and cultural make-up. Bleecker Street, in Greenwich Village, and Ludlow Street, on the Lower East Side, each served as a kind of haven for artists and free-thinkers for much of the late 1900s. Bob Dylan, Alan Ginsberg, Paul Newman, Joan Baez, Edward Hopper, Simon and Garfunkel, and more all lived in and frequented the various venues in the Village in the ’60s. Lou Reed, John Cale, and Sterling Morrison of the Velvet Underground lived on Ludlow Street. Yet, artists did not always find sympathetic faces there.

A Brief History of the Streets

500 years ago, Bleecker and Ludlow Streets were each on land inhabited by the Lenape tribe. In 1609, Henry Hudson first explored the area and in 1624 Fort Amsterdam was established. The Dutch then expanded to control most of Lower Manhattan and in 1674 the area was relinquished to the British.

In the late 1700s, the land that is today Greenwich Village was bought by Anthony Lispenard Bleecker, one of the richest men in New York at the time. Around the same time in the mid-1700s, James De Lancey built a massive estate on the area that is now Ludlow Street. This land was sold around 1780. The estate was then demolished and urban housing was subsequently built. In both cases, this is the first time the area began to resemble a city. By the mid-1800s, boarding houses and tenement buildings for the growing immigrant populations became the main fixture on each street. 

Fast forward to the 1950s, and the area was beginning to be known as a type of bohemia that was abundant with artists and creatives of all kinds. Alan Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and the rest of the Beats arrived in the ’40s and ’50s. At the same time, Jazz music began to thrive in the local clubs, and soon a second wave of musicians came to the area in the early ’60s. 

Check out this fantastic description of Bleecker Street‘s history for a deeper dive and more information.

Bleecker Street

The year is 1964. Bob Dylan has yet to go electric, and The Beatles have yet to appear on the Ed Sullivan Program. An unknown duo from Queens releases an album called Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. which fails to have any success until around a year later when a song called “The Sound of Silence” takes the United States by storm.

This duo is, of course, Simon and Garfunkel. “The Sound of Silence” ends up saving Simon and Garfunkel’s career before it even began. The duo would go on to release five studio albums together and become one of the most popular folk/rock duos of all time. 

What made the song special was the open expression of existential sadness. The shroud of darkness that descended over the states as the Vietnam War raged left America’s youth pessimistic about their future. For the first time, someone was acknowledging it.

In “The Sound of Silence,” Simon and Garfunkel sing, “People talking without speaking / People hearing without listening.” in reflecting on the divided times. Fear and sadness were new to “pop” music.

The third track on Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., “Bleecker Street,” morosely describes the environment and quality of life on the titular street. Aside from being a fantastic song, the song serves as a time capsule capturing the mood and feel of the area in 1964. “Bleecker Street” presents the street as a rundown, godless, nearly inhabitable, street.

Poets, homeless people, and shadows float around alleyways and sad cafes in Paul Simon’s vision of Bleecker Street. It’s a street with so little to offer, you can get a place for just $30! This image of an impoverished Bleecker Street, rather than one rampant with NYU undergrads looking for vintage and vinyl is nearly unbelievable, although the 30-dollar rent may have always been a slight exaggeration.

In “Bleecker Street,” Paul Simon notes the difference between those who smile and those who do not; those who smile do not live on Bleecker Street. Although they try to understand, this place is beyond them. They simply don’t understand. 

The only line in “Bleecker Street” that has any mention at all of the future is “It’s a long road to Canaan.” Canaan, being the biblical promised land, shows how far the lives of Bleecker Street residents are from any form of purity, grace, or otherwise salvation.

Yet, 60 years later, things have changed; artists no longer frequent Bleeker Street. The story is the same across the board cheap restaurants, clubs, and holes in the wall have been pushed out while luxury clothing, posh restaurants, and jewelry stores fill their places.

In an article in New York Magazine from 1984, Craig Unger documents an abandoned property in the East Village’s meteoric rise in price from $62,000 to $3,500,000 in just NINE years. Today, a one-bed one-bath condo in that very same building will cost you $1,120,000. 

Ludlow Street

In 2009, after three studio albums with The Strokes, frontman, and near-sole songwriter Julian Casablancas went solo releasing his only solo full-length project to-date. Phrazes For The Young was released on Nov. 2, and never equaled the critical, or popular reception of his work with The Strokes, or his later band The Voidz. This album, however, remains an interesting point in his discography. 

The album has a distinct feeling that differs from all else in the Casablancas annals. It is unabashedly pop. The dirt and grime of indie sleaze was gone. The Hardcore, Misfits-esque, shock-rock sound that The Voidz will dive into was yet to come. Yet, like every Casablancas project, Phrazes still contains numerous interesting musical ideas that make it an amazing listen, if only for the most devoted of strokers out there. 

Track number five on the album is perhaps the most compelling song in the whole project. “Ludlow St.” deals with complicated issues and addresses the change Casablancas saw in his neighborhood. To put it bluntly, “Ludlow St.” is about gentrification, although the word is never said in the song. Perhaps because it is hard to rhyme, (need a vacation… get to the station… etc.).

In 2008, one year before Casablanacas’ release, one blogger reflected on the change he saw on Ludlow Street since living there in the early-to-mid ’90s. It’s interesting to view these together to get a better sense of the exact change Casablancas was seeing. I also recommend reading the comments on the post to hear the voices of former Ludlow Street residents.

The song begins and ends with a spacey, eerie, unresolved, part that sounds like a voyage in a time machine, or the rippling start of a dream sequence.

It then moves into an extra twangy acoustic skiffle which, along with a keyboard and hi-hat pattern, gives the song an almost Western sound, but with a decidedly modern twist. The entire song somehow sounds as if Casablancas were singing from the perspective of the town drunk in an old western movie rambling on and on in the center of a dusty saloon to unwelcoming patrons. In addition, the song is one of maybe two or three in the entire Casablancas catalog to feature an audible acoustic guitar, which helps sell this vision.

Throughout”Ludlow St.,” Casablancas reflects on the passage of time on Ludlow; how it has changed, and where it came from. He begins by introducing his character’s drinking habit to indicate the severity of the situation. Perhaps the change has made him feel out of place, and this has caused him to pick up a drinking habit in an attempt to escape the inevitable change. Oftentimes, he takes a foreboding approach to the material. He makes sure to repeat the ominous, “We’ll find out soon enough” over and over again through the song.

Gentrification is a delicate issue on an island named after a Lenape word when those very same Lenape were the first to be “pushed out.” Focusing on current issues of displacement without acknowledging the original sin could come across as shortsighted. But, this, thankfully, does not escape Casablancas. 

He, instead, takes a removed approach. He views Ludlow Street through the gaze of history from the start, “back in 1624,” through the present change in 2009 without making any of it about him or how gentrification would affect himself.

In the bridge, he speaks from the point of view, “I” to someone or something who feeds its own ego, while inflating its pride; it kills fantasies and keeps consuming. “Yours” is the specter of capitalism.

By viewing the change from a removed perspective, Casablancas is able to paint a picture of a street that is changing for the worse. Although the change is never immediately felt, the fading of history is always felt “soon enough.”

Gentrification in New York

Going from “where Indians once hunted” to a Dutch plantation, to British control, to a loyalist’s estate, to tenements, and finally to luxury rentals is not unique to either Bleecker Street or Ludlow Street. Much of America has undergone similar steps in displacing those who don’t fit in on its way to polished white nothingness.

This change is not just speculation. In 2016, a study conducted by the Urban Displacement Project, aimed to map displacement and gentrification in the New York metropolitan area. They found “There are 314 super-gentrified or exclusive neighborhoods in the metro region, forming a ring of very high income suburban and exurban communities around New York City, in addition to creating islands of exclusion in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.” (Read the full study here.)

As a musician, Julian Casablancas has felt this change in a unique way. Many of the same venues that Casablancas went to and played in as a youth are no longer around. The “undisputed birthplace of punk,” CBGB closed its doors for the last time in 2006. Since 1973, the institution helped launch the careers of The Ramones, Blondie, Television, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Misfits, and many, many more. One blogger has documented the history of the venue.

CBGB’s story is far from unique. Luna Lounge, Max’s Kansas City, The Bottom Line, and many more clubs significant to NYC’s music history are gone. In a series called “Vanished Venues,” which contains over 600 installments, its writer, Alex, has written a shortlist of the twelve most missed venues in NYC.

Alex writes, “Where once downtown Manhattan was a fertile urban frontier where artists and musicians could meet, develop and thrive, it’s now a posh stretch of pricey, gentrified real estate.”

Is this the trajectory of every street like Bleecker and Ludlow? Will every building or business that gave residents a sense of community be pushed out? What will these streets look like in 2050?

We’ll find out soon enough.