f you find yourself in Manhattan’s Lower East Side around Delancey Street—where the painted pink-purple steel of the Williamsburg Bridge dumps cars straight into the pizza, graffiti, and cellphone store-clogged heart of the city and where cyclists and pedestrians make the steep climb upward and over the East River—you’ll pass through the long shadow of Essex Crossing, a towering apartment complex that is the latest and most egregious monument to gentrification in the historically immigrant-heavy, working-class neighbourhood. Along with these new luxury residences, you’ll also find Essex Market, a food court filled with high-quality meats, cute bakeries, world cuisine, and a full vegan deli; while there’s no denying the food is good, the pervasive feeling is akin to a Silicon Valley tech campus. As sterile as these new spaces might seem, though, the lingering flavour of the area is hard, perhaps impossible, to kill: despite the best efforts of real-estate vampires and chain
