Bruce Monroe

Good morning, East Village.

We begin the week still trying to process many of the sights, sounds and, yes, smells of Santacon. During the weekend, hundreds of revelers dressed as St. Nick descended on East Village bars in an event that seemed to underscore neighborhood tensions around such issues as noise and alcohol. And, as if on cue, The Post offered two pieces over the past few days examining some of those very issues.

One article, headlined “Lower East Side Is Losing It” mourns the loss of Mars Bar, Max Fish and Pink Pony. “There are no neighborhoods in Manhattan anymore,” The Post quotes the author Richard Price saying. “South of Harlem, it feels like a bunch of districts where rich people can crash.”

The second piece took a wildly divergent view citing the recent Capital piece on Superdive to describe how “bohemian snobs” are driving “frat boys” out of the neighborhood. “The story of the East Village might be how little things have changed,” the author writes. “It’s still a cramped little hipster Vatican suspicious of outsiders.” Two pieces very much worth reading.