V--2nd Chap 12, beginning, p.347

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Would it help if I said "prior to the '80s"?  The point is that from the time urban developer Robert Moses came on the scene, urban renewal meant bulldozing warehouses and tenements. The good life was in the suburbs (except for hipsters). Pynchon (and it's he, the omniscient author speaking in '62, not Benny speaking in '56 here)didn't know that the downtown factory buildings would be gentrified, rather than bull-dozed.

Recall that scene in ATD where [is it Frank Traverse?] looks upon a Colorado mining town, little realizing that those humble shacks would be worth millions later on (or words to that effect).

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>

>In book it is 1956....V. is published by 1963 early, so he had reality to about 
>mid-1962...
>
>And he writes, "Someday there would be cranes, ...bulldozers, etc.''
>
>What am I missing?
>
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
>
>If Pynchon's talking about anywhere in lower Manhattan, he got it wrong.  In the 
>'60s, urban renewal meant bulldozing and rebuilding.  No one could have 
>anticipated the whole gentrification-renovation bonanza, that converted 
>abandoned factories to artist-squatter lofts to renovated hipster lofts to 
>luxury residences for the super-rich. Continued recession, combined with a 
>terrorist attack or two, and the rich may flee, starting the cycle over again.   
>A sinusoidal curve rather than one of Fausto's discontinuous transformations.
>
>Laura
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>Sent: Dec 8, 2010 10:02 PM
>>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: V--2nd Chap 12, beginning, p.347
>>
>>old condemned warehouse not legal....another Pynchonian place....Low-Lands in 
>>the City, so to speak...
>>
>>Soon 'developed'--that IV theme here in mini w bulldozers, etc. 
>>
>>Constant in America.....what Pierce did............
>>
>>
>>      
>
>
>