I was too busy at the waterpark this week to give the New York Times a proper look. So, I am grateful to Dr. Manhattan for sending a link to this article about the Bukharian Jews building McMansions in Queens. They’re building monstrosities and paving over front yards in Forest Hills.
There, Bukharians have been tearing down the neighborhood’s sedate
Tudor, Georgian and Cape Cod-style homes, paving over lawns and
erecting white-brick edifices that borrow from old Europe, with
sweeping balustrades, stone lions bracketing regal double doorways,
chateau-style dormers and pitched roofs, Romanesque and Greek columns
and ornate wrought-iron balconies accented with gold leaf that glints
in the sun.
I love the quotes from a local rabbi.
“We like to utilize every single square inch of land, every inch of
territory,” explained Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, head of a Bukharian
synagogue and community center in Kew Gardens Hills. “For some reason,
people don’t appreciate it.”The Bukharian tendency to pave over everything is practical, he
continued. Bukharians preferred a terrace or patio to a lawn, which he
called “useless land.” A yard required mowing — “a waste of time,” he
said.“Exhibit A,” he said, gesturing to a brick row house on 76th Road.
It had a verdant front yard that seemed to beg for mowing and pruning.
“You see this?” he said dismissively. “What is this? What are we seeing
here?”He then pointed to the house next door. “Exhibit B,” he
declared. The house was fronted by a well-swept terrace of red and
black paving stones and enclosed within a five-foot-high wall that, he
said, ensured some privacy. Any remaining green was an accent rather
than a feature.“You can eat outside, the kids have a place to play,” the rabbi said. “You have usage of the front of your house.”
“It’s nice, it’s beautiful,” he added. “What are you afraid of?”
I was laughing as I read this piece not only because you can easily hear the rabbi saying "it’s nice, it’s beautiful" in a Borat voice, and because the clash of new immigrants and old New Yorkers is such a familiar story. I was laughing, because this story is so universal. This story of clashing tastes plays out everywhere.
Last week, I was sitting in the backyard of some neighbors and gossiping about the latest town battle about a drive through KFC. Clearly, I’m not a fan. (leftie, professor, arugula-eater) I want a walkable downtown with restaurants that I will actually patronize. It doesn’t make sense to reduce your tax burden by $20 but lower your property value by $20,000. This all makes perfect sense to me, but I wasn’t able to convince my neighbors of the wisdom of my words. They honestly don’t think that drive through fastfood joints are an eye sore. More Heart Attack Heavens, they said. After a short while, I changed the topic, because it’s impossible to convince people that they have bad taste.
I’ve been getting semi-involved in town planning politics, because we live so close to the downtown. And I’m fascinated. It’s really the politics of taste. I suppose there is something cool that each town defines good taste in its own way, and people can choose where they live in, in part based on the comparable taste levels. It’s also very frustrating, because it’s impossible to appeal to facts. How do you convince someone that a cement front lawn is ugly?
Apt. 11d 
“How do you convince someone that a cement front lawn is ugly?”
I know this one: Write it on the ass of some sweatpants and sell them at local stores.
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“Good taste” is something of a luxury good — the thing you choose over the absolute cheapest option.
If your budget allows for “fancier meals” than the family bucket at KFC, then you can afford the “good taste” of not having a KFC nearby. If you can afford the maintenance costs, time, and equipment required for lawn care, you can afford the good taste of a lawn.
If your finances (or priorities) send your money elsewhere, then you can only afford McMansions, fast food, cement lawns, and other forms of “bad taste.”
90% of the time, “have good taste” just means “have the same spending priorities that I do.” The other 10% of the time, I open up the shades in my bedroom, and see the bright, bright yellow housepaint of my next door neighbor (“The Sunrise of the West”).
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I see your point to a certain extent, Ragtime. But then I see the neighbors who pay *tons* of money for the giant concrete gargoyles they put on the top of their two-flat … and I think, hmm, maybe it’s not all about the cash.
In my particular neighborhood there is some tension between gay male homeowners (who are felt to be over-the-top with ornamentation on their homes) and the straight families (who are more traditional). In that case both groups have equivalent resources. It really is a matter of pure taste.
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I recall the fight against the KFC on Broadway and 106. It was tragically replacing a beloved deli (insert photo of storefront of mostly cigarette and beer banners here). The concern was that it would draw an undesirable element to the neighborhood. Apparently white people don’t eat fried chicken. To me, the bickering seemed as blatantly racist as the discussions of the gentrification of Harlem.
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In our neighborhood, there is very odd block-to-block variations in lawn care. On some blocks, every single house is “Chemlawned” or super-turfed or whatever it is that makes the lawns bright green with no patches and no weeds and commercial-perfect. Other blocks, everyone has normal, well-groomed, but non-“treated” lawns that are three shades lighter green, and maybe a brown patch or two.
I can understand the tipping-point mentality that bristles at having a lawn way out of line (either way) than the neighbors, but I kind of find it amusing, and don’t know which choice (in a vacuum) shows better “taste.”
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