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The Lights Are Out on the Mean Streets: Lou Reed's ‘Dirty Blvd.’ and Inequality in New York City

image of The Lights Are Out on the Mean Streets: Lou Reed's ‘Dirty Blvd.’ and Inequality in New York City

Lou Reed's song “Dirty Blvd.” from his album New York (1989) represents an indictment of the disparity of wealth in New York City at the end of the Reagan era. The track provides a glimpse of the life of Pedro, an abused Hispanic boy living in the dilapidated Wilshire Hotel on West 58th Street amid luxury residential buildings. Reed contrasts Pedro with the Manhattan elite, empowered by a resurgent Wall Street and a booming real estate market. Pedro is emblematic of the failed American Dream, of the betrayal of the Statue of Liberty to offer opportunity for immigrants. As the crack cocaine epidemic batters poor neighborhoods, Pedro dreams of escaping his environs but is destined to end up on the dirty boulevard, where illicit activity is rampant. Blunt and candid, “Dirty Blvd.” is a commentary on inequality in the city, narrated by one of New York's great storytellers.

Keywords: affordable housing ; crack cocaine ; Dirty Blvd. ; gentrification ; homelessness ; income inequality ; Lou Reed ; neoliberalism ; New York City ; welfare hotels

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References

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  3. DeCurtis, Anthony (1989), ‘New York’, Rolling Stone, 23 February, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/new-york-249238/. Accessed 19 October 2023.
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  5. Dreier, Peter (2004), ‘Reagan's Legacy: Homelessness in America’, Shelterforce, 1 May, https://shelterforce.org/2004/05/01/reagans-legacy-homelessness-in-america/. Accessed 29 April 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Dullea, Georgia (1986), ‘Welfare Hotel: Once Gilded, Now Grim’, New York Times, 18 November, Section B, p. 1.
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  7. Ferranti, Seth (2011), ‘They Call Themselves the Bebos’, Gorilla Convict, 8 October, https://www.gorillaconvict.com/2011/10/they-call-themselves-the-bebos/. Accessed 3 April 2021.
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  24. Massing, Michael (1989), ‘Crack's Destructive Sprint across America’, New York Times, 1 October.
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  26. Pareles, Jon (1987), ‘The Pop Life’, New York Times, 18 November, Section C, p. 32.
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  27. Peters, James and Marques, Stuart (1989a), ‘DA Cites “War” in Trial Sum-Up’, Daily News, 28 March, p. 15.
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  30. Pitt, David E. (1988), ‘At Night, Drugs Invade the Projects’, New York Times, 1 September, Section B, p. 1.
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  31. Reed, Lou (1989), New York, CD, New York: Sire Records.
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  34. Shenon, Philip (1983), ‘Welfare Hotel Families: Life on the Edge’, New York Times, 31 August, Section B, p. 1.
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  35. Shkuda, Aaron (2016), The Lofts of SoHo: Gentrification, Art, and Industry in New York, 1950–1980, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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  37. Soffer, Jonathan (2010), Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City, New York: Columbia University Press.
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  38. Tochterman, Brian (2017), The Dying City: Postwar New York and the Ideology of Fear, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
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  39. Wilentz, Sean Wilentz (2008), The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008, New York: Harper Perennial.
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  40. Wines, Michael (1988a), ‘Behind the Park Melee, a New Generation Gap’, New York Times, 8 August, Section B, p. 2.
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  41. Wines, Michael (1988b), ‘Class Struggle Erupts along Avenue B’, New York Times, 10 August, Section B, p. 1.
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