This thread is not about the EV Art scene. It was trying to reflect on those aspects of New York we have seen depart: Farewell Charming Old New York.
Sanctimonious attitude from those -- including myself -- who are not painters, deciding that some passionate artists are really only sell-outs, or even deciding they were perfect, whatever... what is the point? Do we really know eveything about who they were, and what they intended? Because Kostabi and Warhol were cynical money-lovers doesn't mean everyone else was or is or will be.
I was reminiscising about those times 1980- on, and how my life and the lives of artists I know have changed. Not just in the East Village, but all over the New York area. Starting with famous old bars and nightclubs, and the ghosts of those who dwelt there... I am sure you don't care that these 'elitist' establishments are all dying. But for example I can't say 'why' I was so devastated when the original Russian Tea Room died. You grow up in a place, and you don't like to see things die. Even if it is just an artificial construct like a bar or restaurant.
This is one reason I love Paris so much. There are shops there and scenes which haven't changed since my first trip there in 1973. Call me boringly sentimental but when something lasts, I'm in awe, like it's a miracle.
By the same token I love destruction and total upheaval. And this is why the EV scene was so wonderful for me and quite a few others. Artists from that time, now in their fifties & sixties who once had a good scene going in New York, now have to live in the boonies and travel all over to make a living. The economic realities of the 1980s, when you could literally work a couple of days a month and pay your rent, are poof. At least half a dozen I know have moved to the Deep Styx in New Mexico, and some have the shell-shocked look of an army who liberated themselves within one country, only to find it become totalitarian, and they had to flee with their lives.
So if you want to keep carrying on about how that scene was false, dubious or just an illusion -- wow how awful for the art world -- please go to Troylegra's first thread and continue on. Perhaps I will answer you there on that subject.