"She also knows she can sound as though she is waxing nostalgic for the good old days that were not always so good. Should we yearn for the days of mob control? Of violence? Of men on the docks saying the foulest things imaginable to a young woman with a camera? No of course not, she said. And change is inevitable. What bothers her is this encroaching homogenization, this gradual separation of the city's present from its past, as if 'Vinnie The Bone' was carving bone from meat. South Street and its fish market evoke the earliest days of Manhattan island; open air stalls, a commerce based on halibut and shrimp, crabs and blues; and the salt scented air, uniting city dwellers with the open water.”
"EVERYTHING IS DISCARDED and NOTHING HAS VALUE", Ms. Mensch continued. What is put in its place? .........As she spoke, the uniqueness of this historic district seemed to melt away like ice chips falling on fish market pavement................"
Taken from Dan Barry's interview with Barbara Mensch for his article About New York: That Smell? Fish and Sweat Fading Into a Sanitized Future, NY Times, April 3, 2004.