First Person
October 11, 2011, 2:00 pm

Allen Salkin: Is Living in the East Village A Blessing or a Curse?

By LAURIANE DAVID

In a New York Post story about his show “Bored to Death,” Jonathan Ames said, “It used to be that I walked around the East Village and went, ‘There’s someone I went to an artist colony with.’ But now, no oddball writer types are really left in Manhattan.” Mr. Ames isn’t the only writer who has watched the neighborhood change. On Sunday, Oct. 2 locals gathered at the BMW Guggenheim Lab to share their stories during an event, “Growing Up and Old on the Lower East Side: 5-minute stories from locals on making a home in a place of flux.” Among the speakers was former New York Times staff writer Allen Salkin. Watch a clip from his talk and tell us what you think.

First Person