I'm starting to feel really old --

I spent last weekend in DC and walked by the old 9:30 Club (picture below). That whole side of F Street has been remodeled and it looks like none of the properties have been rented (go figure...). Somehow, I don't think you would have had the music or the scene that sprung up out of the 9:30 Club in a neighborhood that now has a McCormick & Schmick and Gordon Biersch.

The same sentiment hold for CBGB. Forgetting the rent debacle, would the club have survived on the Bowery given the high-end stores and restaurants that have opened up around it?

Given the sky-high rents in most major cities, it just seems like there is no going home again.

After moving from DC to NYC in the 90s, I was a regular at the Continental (Divide) and Coney Island High and was sad to see both club go. (There was a quote from Trigger on BrooklynVegan a few years ago: "I’m surrounded by McDonald’s and Starbucks and K-Mart and I’m paying that level rent."

What took the cake for me was that I was on St. Mark's Place earlier today and the former Mondo Kim's location is going to be a karaoke bar. I wasn't that big a fan of Kim's - good used CD selection, major attitude from the employees - but I suppose that a karaoke bar makes the transformation of St. Mark's Place complete.

I fully recognize that change is a continual thing that happens everywhere (and that I'm the one who is out of the step with the pace of change) but I have a hard time seeing how this change is for the better.