|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
Community Profile - Florent Morellet
|
|
|
|
 Florent Morellet has been a prominent figure in the Meatpacking District since he opened Restaurant Florent on Gansevoort Street in 1985. Over the past two decades, his distinctive French diner has been a meeting place for artists, writers, community activists, night-clubbers, and meatpackers. Florent has been a guiding force in the Meatpacking District community. He spearheaded the creation of the Gansevoort Market Historical District with Jo Hamilton, and he was an early supporter of the High Line's conversion into public open space.
FHL: When did you first come to the Meatpacking District?
FM: I think it was on my third night in New York, in the spring of 1978, when some friends took me to the Anvil, which was one of the "dirty" gay bars. We came out at three or four in the morning in an altered state, and instead of coming out to a depressing, dead, empty city, I came out to a bustling, traffic-jammed, smelly, exciting, full-of-life place. It really blew my mind. I had no idea.
FHL: Why did you decide to open a restaurant around here?
FM: Until 1984, I worked in a restaurant in SoHo called La Gamelle. When the time came that I was ready to open my restaurant, I wanted to be downtown, but away from a main street. I had a friend who lived right next door to here, at 67 Gansevoort Street. She was a meat saleswoman, and I used to buy meat from her. One day I asked her, "how about the Meat Market?" And she told me, "I was waiting for you to ask that question!" The guy downstairs had a restaurant, and he owned the building, but he wanted to sell the restaurant. It was exactly what I wanted. I really didn't want to design a restaurant; I wanted something that was existing, where people felt comfortable. If you want to re-create a French bistro around the world, you don't just reproduce it, you go somewhere and you see what exists there, but twist it a little bit. Here, it was a diner, and I twisted it a little by adding the banquette along the wall, with the little mirror above. So it became a hybrid. When you walk in you see on the right the banquette, that's kind of French. On the left, the diner counter is totally American. In other words, it's a French diner.
FHL: You must have seen a lot of changes since then. What has it been like to be in the middle of it all?
FM: People always ask me the same question about this neighborhood: when do you feel like it took off? I don't know; it's impossible to say. It's like that feeling when you're taking a big train. You can't really feel the train start, it's so incremental, so slow. And now, with the super-fast bullet train, you can't tell when it's going to go from normal-train speed to super-fast train speed. This neighborhood is a little bit like the train. You don't even know you're moving at all. Then you see things passing at a very fast pace.
FHL: How do you feel about all the changes?
FM: There have always been people who have cried "There goes the neighborhood." There are people who moved here in 1995, who are saying it now. There are people who moved here in 1990 who said it in 2000. You know what? I grew up in a small town in the provinces of France. If you move from a small town anywhere to New York, it means that you have to enjoy change. What I've tried to do as a part of this community is to "channel-change," to use whatever tools we have. One tool was landmarking. One was zoning: keeping the zoning Manufacturing and Commercial.
FHL: You and Jo Hamilton started Save Gansevoort Market, a grassroots organization which ultimately landmarked the Meatpacking District. As with the High Line, it was a project that nobody thought would actually happen at first. What do the two projects have in common, and how did they both gain such momentum?
FM: On our end, and I think with the High Line too, we went around to the neighborhood not as in-your-face preservationists, but saying, "Hey, let's have lunch," especially with people who were against the idea. They'd say, "No I'm against landmarking," and we'd say, "Ok, we just want you to know what we're doing." After a meal talking like this, there's already a difference. They'd say, "It's still not my thing, but I'll keep in touch. At worst, I'll be neutral. We'll see." I think with the High Line, it was the same thing. Josh and Robbie were very charming and great at building a coalition, and at the same time, they went to the City, saying "Ok. Ring-ring, this is what we want to do, what do you think?" I think both of us got so lucky with the Bloomberg administration. Bloomberg had a vision for these projects as a sort of backbone for the revitalization of the West Side. So both groups were a new brand of activists, smooth operators who are not in-your-face.
FHL: When people come to your restaurant for the first time, they always notice right away the three reader boards you have up. How did they come to be?
FM: The boards were there from the beginning. At first, the middle one was the weather, because I'm a weather freak. The one on the right we decided was going to be things happening. The one on the left, well, I have always been into travel, and it was the time of cheap airlines like People Express. So we decided to put the cheapest fare on People Express up there. And then the late night crowd, the butcher crew, started putting their political rants on it, and I remember coming in the morning and saying, "What the heck? Wait, this is sort of cool." For the past six years or so, an ex-employee named Tom Eubanks has been the restaurant's editor. Sometimes he goes on rants on the boards and I say, "Tom, I don't get it." But we agree that people should sometimes not get everything. I have always been politically active; my whole family has always been. I realized early on that my restaurant is a perfect bully pulpit. I realized that politics was the best way to advertise the restaurant, so it makes a great combination. People come here and they feel like they are getting more than a meal. They are coming to their political home.
FHL: What do you like to do in this neighborhood besides hang out at your restaurant?
FM: This neighborhood is full of single-owner businesses, and most of them are owned by people who have come to this neighborhood because they like it. I like the people, and I like to be a facilitator. We're working on a study right now of the traffic, with the Project for Public Spaces. I studied city planning in college for a while, then I dropped out to do what I love. I would love to continue to be involved in planning issues in this neighborhood. I love to bring people to the table, to facilitate communication in an exchange of ideas. People have called me the Mayor of the Meat Market, but I'll settle for Queen.
|
|
|
|
| Sign up to receive the FHL E-Newsletter and updates. |
|
Support the High Line
By becoming a Charter Member of Friends of the High Line, you will become part of an ever-growing group of supporters working to make the High Line vision a reality.
Join Now  |
Do Not Trespass
The High Line is currently owned by the City of New York. It is not open to the public. Please do not trespass. |
|
|
|
|
|
