Hey pizza and ivy,

You guys have very informative posts. Enjoy reading them.

As for the gentrification: More like segregation, except not by race, by class. The hipsters forced out the polish from greenpoint, greeks from astoria and are now pushing out the Irish from wooside/sunnyside. Midwestern kids with endless free time, small personal fortunes and an aversion to manual labor of any kind now occupy half the city. I hate to sound harsh but I think its the truth. And I'm sick of all their world saving advice and advocacy. It seems like every one of these idiots has a million dollar trust fund and a cause.

And as for the Genovese discussion: I think I am equating the word "base" with a home base, not a business base. From that perspective, most families in the construstion rackets can still call manhattan their base.

To illustrate some of the points being made about NYC demographics, this is a racial/ethnic map from the 2010 census:
http://www.urbanresearchmaps.org/comparinator/pluralitymap.htm