Gothamist has a wide-ranging interview with David Cross about the new season of his IFC show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, eating molecular food with Patton Oswalt and his lovely fiancée Amber Tamblyn. Then he drops the bombshell: He’s moving across the East River.
I’ve read in a previous interview that you read the blog EV Grieve. What sort of NIMBY, gentrification issue going on in the East Village get your blood boiling? Or does it all get your blood boiling? All of it, really. I have very strong feelings about what’s going on in the East Village. I’m moving at the end of next week, I’m moving to Brooklyn. I’ve been fed up with what’s going on for about five years. There are so many examples but let me just sum up. On Houston—I think between Second Avenue and Bowery, or maybe it’s Allen and Chrystie—there’s a big, huge 7-11 with big, beautiful 7-11 signs. [Ed: We think he’s referring to the one on Bowery.] There’s an IHOP on 14th Street, Subway sandwiches all over the place. The thing is, I left Atlanta a long time ago and I’m spending way too much money to live in Atlanta again, you know? I mean it really is…it’s just…
Homogenized. It’s mildly heartbreaking. It’s just becoming more and more like a mall. I might as well be in St. Louis. It’s very, very quickly, rapidly losing a lot of its character.
And Brooklyn’s less of a mall? Yeah much less. Phenomenally less. Much, much, much, much, much, much, much less.
Well good luck to you in Brooklyn. I’m not quite sick of Manhattan yet. We’ll see. A few more years. Where in Manhattan are you?
I’m on the Lower East Side around Ridge Street. Oh well it’s making its way down there.
Yeah, it’s pretty much there already. I’ve been in the East Village for ten and a half years now and for five years I’ve been like, “Enough is enough.”
The Observer is pretty sure that the arrival of David Cross only portends the end of Brooklyn, as well, plus, we can’t quite see him gibing with the borough’s tweeness. Still, exciting news. He’ll rank somewhere between Steve Buschemi and Gyllengaard on the Brooklyn Power Matrix.
(Full-disclosure: The Observer once bought Mr. Cross an Appletini while he was D.J.ing at B-Bar in his once-beloved East Village. By bought we mean like in the movies, from across the bar, by D.J.ing we mean he was fiddling around on his MacBook. Mr. Cross did not accept the drink, but should he happen by Beer Table or Enids while we are there, the first drink is on up.)
