Legacy Records Too Dark Branding

In his Times review of a novel Hudson Yards restaurant, Pete Wells writes that Legacy Records has "ginned upwards a history for itself that brings together sloppy inquiry amongst a superficial tribute to dark culture."

I haven't been within the place, then I'll larn out it to Wells, who describes images of dark musicians on the walls, stars similar Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, in addition to Marvin Gaye, who supposedly recorded inward a studio on the site. Except they didn't. There was a studio at that topographic point for a few years inward the 2000s, he says, "mostly used past times orchestras, Broadway cast recordings in addition to commercials."

There's too a photograph past times Mickalene Thomas of a dark adult woman amongst an Afro inward a sexy pose.


photo past times Gary He

Wells concludes:

"Legacy Records has taken this shred of history in addition to turned it into a fantasy of dark American music.

Exhibited inward a museum or gallery, Ms. Thomas’s photograph powerfulness last taken equally a comment on the dissimilar postures in addition to personas available to dark women. Hanging it side past times side to the counter where pastries in addition to java are sold past times hateful solar daytime strips out around of its meaning; it looks similar an drive to purchase a personality for a eating theatre that doesn’t induce got i of its own.

If anyone gets to determine who tin occupation dark civilisation for what purposes, it sure enough isn’t me. But Legacy Records uses it inward a gratuitous in addition to offhanded fashion that made me uncomfortable. Stevie Wonder volition ever last cool, but a eating theatre dreamed upwards past times existent estate developers doesn’t automatically expire cool past times putting him on the wall."


photo: Mo Gelber

What Wells describes is non but cultural appropriation, it is "black branding" for the purposes of commodifying an urban infinite for the wealthy in addition to generally white. It is a tendency that comes amongst hyper-gentrifying cities across America.

In his majority "Race, Class, in addition to Politics inward the Cappuccino City,” Derek S. Hyra writes: “Not long ago, an urban community’s association amongst blackness was generally perceived equally detrimental. But nowadays...neighborhood-based organizations, existent estate developers, eating theatre owners in addition to urban planners commodify in addition to appropriate aspects of blackness to promote tourism, homeownership, in addition to community redevelopment.”

We saw it most famously at the With hyper-gentrification, New York City is getting whiter. And, equally we've seen inward many recent tidings reports, equally oculus in addition to upper-class whites motion into dark in addition to brownish neighborhoods, they call the police trace on dark people--for barbecuing, playing music, in addition to but hanging out. These attacks laissez passer on off simultaneously amongst the commodification of blackness.

Lower-income dark people are pushed out. Their images in addition to symbols are kept past times the race/class victors equally trophies in addition to marketing opportunities. It tin last seen equally a shape of revenge.


Barbecue Becky, Oakland, CA

“The rallying proper name of the revanchist city,” wrote urbanist in addition to gentrification practiced Neil Smith, “might good be: ‘Who lost the city? And on whom is revenge to last exacted?’”

The notion of the lost city, the stolen city, goes dorsum to white flight, a phenomenon engineered past times the federal authorities outset inward the 1930s. Without Jim Crow inward the northern United States, the authorities had to occupation stealthier methods of segregation. They developed the racist housing exercise of redlining to bound dark in addition to brownish people inward disinvested cities, spell luring whites away amongst goodness deals on houses inward whites-only suburbs. This drain of the city’s taxation base of operations played a major role inward the financial crisis of the 1970s, which provided the economical excuse for New York’s reorientation away from social republic in addition to towards neoliberalism, the radical gratis market, aka "trickle-down economics." And it is from at that topographic point that hyper-gentrification, equally a top-down tactic of province in addition to urban kernel government, began.

We cannot beak nearly hyper-gentrification without too talking nearly racism. The storey of American majuscule cannot last disentangled from the storey of slavery inward America. Neoliberalism, spell it is an economical approach, was a white supremacist solution. It was, in addition to continues to be, a powerful method to “take back” the urban kernel -- and, ultimately, the country—from dark in addition to brownish people in addition to to re-establish the ability of the wealthy white elite. 


Inside Legacy Records, photo: Gary He, via Eater

So it seems appropriate that this eating theatre is purpose of Hudson Yards, the simulated urban kernel within a city, a curated infinite for the ultra-elite, in addition to the perfect production of neoliberalized New York -- amongst all its corporate welfare, Hudson Yards has damage the urban kernel hundreds of millions of dollars.

As I noted inward my majority Vanishing New York, Hudson Yards is a "dreamworld of exclusion," i of those places Mike Davis describes inward Evil Paradises: “where the rich tin walk similar gods inward the nightmare gardens of their deepest in addition to most cloak-and-dagger desires.”






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