The uptown rich discovered East Village nightspots within months of their opening

Evidence

By November, the New York Times dispatched fashion reporter Charlotte Curtis down to investigate the scene: “The uptown rich, who popularized Small’s Paradise in Harlem and the Peppermint Lounge in midtown, have discovered the East Village nightspots” was her unimpressed report. The Dom was “nothing more than a large room with red walls, a few subdued lights, loud music, and air that reeks of Gauloise cigarettes. The dance floor is a stage on which all variations of the twist are attempted.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 635

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Strong evidence for the artist-as-advance-guard-of-gentrification thesis: the scene is discovered by the rich almost immediately, and a fashion reporter’s dismissive tourism is the leading indicator of displacement.
• XREF: Charlotte Curtis’s unimpressed ‘nothing more than’ tone is the precise reportorial condescension that flags a scene already being evacuated upward.