Back to my website

Bye Town, Sty Town or Buy Town, Sty Town, bye, bye

+it is official Buy Town, Stuy Town, bye bye...

so I put my poem up on the blog...slighlty modified

Sty town
bye town
affordable housing
just another oxymoron
built for returning WW2 vets
and low income
Peter Cooper Sty Town
Bye town bye bye

when NYU made Sty town
an unofficial dorm
it was a clue
bye bye Sty town
affordable housing oxymoron


Mayor thanks for the 150 million
anti smoking donation
a man burnt my hand as he passed
me on the street
he said he is sorry
sorry but the he ain't putting
down his cigarette.


Met Life do the last good deed
for middle income
and sell Peter Cooper Sty town
to the people that have lived
there because they looked and
they can't afford Brooklyn and Queens no more
no more affordable housing
for the middle and lower income
the homeless numbers just larging up
so is litter on the street
is something wrong with our eye hand coordination
or did people just give up?
did you give up us, the people
and we gave up too?
history, historic buildings torn
down
and i never saw so much litter
on the street
My heart and soul still
mourning the 2 big Towers,
people that took the Express to Heaven,
so much so much 9-11


I voted for Bloomberg because
I thought he'd bring innovations

hello 311
NYU
tax free not for profit institution
just tore down another beautiful building
Edgar Allen Poe piece
of history all for what?
mega dorms? NYU mega domination
living in NYU ville and I thought I was
living in the East Village.
all for what?
St. Ann's survived 158 years
but not NYU's
need for yet another
mega dorm...
for what? College kids want to say they live
here, NYU, NY Law not NYU, The New
School, Cooper Union, SVA and
the small businesses keep closing
and evictions keep rising like the
monster-mega dorma
but our college kids have housing all for
and higher and higher education
so exclusive all that live
here are excluded!
we have to leave
we can't afford NYU-ville
or health insurance
or NYC anymore....



Sty town
bye town

one day you might miss us,
will miss us
but don't come
looking
because I don't want to you
to tear down my hiding
place

bye,
Good Bye New York
as we knew you and loved
you because the Mayor
says we don't have money
and have to close our firehouses
so beautiful with the memories
the fire houses from another
century also working memorials to 911
Mayor Mike says sorry they must go
because the City is bust
but the mega rich's pockets
have never been deeper
as the supersize and uglify
and no one is policing them
City planning is high fiving
them aiding and abetting supersizng them
ignoring our pleas to
save our 'hood and our
long term community members
that continue to be forced to leave


I hand in my testimony in
for 128 East 13th to
any honorable man that
does listen, I know
Amanda Burden can't hear
our pleas and even tells
me --oops she
took my call by
accident
but she can't rationalize
the tear down of St. Ann's Church
and I tell her
the 10 alarm fire in Greenpoint
we need preserving not
destruction David Kramer calls a NYU mega dorm

City incentives to developers ain't about affordable housing
just a Trojan horse for developers
to supersize our historic communities

bye bye and it ain't just Sty town,
people keep saying sorry...

why do the mega rich
tear down our history
like terrorist and build
such ugly testiments
to the fact wealth
and power doesn't
come with
appreciation for
acestics

I listen...
who was there...?
Nobody --
embarrased
mean no celebrities...

we pass the mirrored building
in front of the big black
cube at Astory Place and
see reflections
of a hood that is changing
and that we ain't welcome.
yet the want to live
next to you and me
byeand it is all over
ain't just Sty town,
by town
bye New York City
bye bye


Come visit us soon
cause we are looking
like an ugly midtown
traffic tied up with NYU buses and trolley
so leave extra time cause
the college kids can't use
public transportation

if you don't visit
you can visit
a recreation
of the Bowery
Lower East Side
and Village East and West
in Las Vegas in a museum

but don't come look for us
you won't be visiting
the house the Ruth built
it ain't
just Peter Cooper
and Sty Town
bye town,
no Donald Trump--
leave Spring and Varrick alone,
it has been along
time coming
a slow long exodus...

bye and thanks
for the t shirt
"I love NYC
but I can't afford to
live here"
bye bye


Suzannah B. Troy

Back to my website