Best writer in the whole world, Junot Diaz, was joined by fellow novelist Richard Price to wax poetic about New York for the 40th anniversary of New York Magazine. Turns out, Junot really misses that time you could walk through Times Square and risk stepping on a syringe, a used condom or an abandoned crack baby. Ah, the good ol’ days. Says Junot, wistfully and perhaps a little angrily, with a hoodie over his head so he looks all street and mysterious:

When I arrived in New York, in 1994, it was the golden era of the Dominican community in Washington Heights. Finally people had established themselves. There were enough people who could speak English, who were, like, multicultural, who’d been to college. And it was such a weird thing to have your community coming into its own at the same time that New York City was in some ways being transformed into a fucking playground. We were coming of age on limited time. All the cards were on the table, but no one could see it yet. We didn’t know that Washington Heights was going to be sold out from under us.

We were making do because when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And then some other cliche. Yeah nice job, author. He continues, adding his thoughts on the fact that Starbucks are sprouting all over Harlem, like open sores on a Times Square street walker circa 1979, fuckers:

Me and my girl beef [Ed. note: We totally first read that as “queef.”] about this. I know this is a weird thing to desire, but when you feel locked out of the larger culture, even if it’s a consumer-capitalist one, that’s a lot, bro. [Ed. note: That’s how you know he’s down.] You know, there’s not a bookstore, and there’s not a place you can go if you wanna spend $5 for coffee. It weighs on people, man. It feels like you’re isolated, and you are. My girl loved it when a Starbucks opened up. But I’m one of those fuckers who’s like, “Naw, man, it’s corporate!” I’m like an idiot.

And whither the gay, blind, homeless pimps, you ask? Not in Times Square!:

And where you have fucking gay people and homeless people and black people and white people and pimps and people with money—all in one place. Times Square was a zone. And that’s gone. In my grandfather’s time in the Dominican Republic, the frontier with Haiti was a similar zone. My grandfather spoke Creole. The Haitian dollar, the gourde, was used as money. But the Dominican government was like, Yo, you know what? This is fucked up. This is very hard to control. You can’t sell shit to people when they’re too busy being human. And the Dominican government needed to sell the nationalist myth. And so the border culture was destroyed.

What does this have to do with homeless gay pimps who are also blind? Perhaps they are in Central Square? By the Statue of Empire?:

I felt in some ways that the best part of the border—not the violent, horrible part but the best part—is the stuff that got eliminated in Central Square. I mean, in Times Square.

Aw, Junot. We make fun because we love. And because we’re a super fucking jealous asshole. You’re our favorite Grumpy Old.

In Conversation: Richard Price and Junot Díaz [NY Mag]