What a difference a decade makes

Just got an email from Blair, my darling ex in NYC. I was there for a few years in the mid-90s and we spent the last year-and-a-half living across the street from each other.
I last visited him in 2000, and he's still in the same fab loft, in what used to be an ignored offshoot of Soho.
Not no more.
The Mondrian Hotel has just opened next door to him, which joins sundry nearby boutiques, including Opening Ceremony in the building I lived in.

Anyway, he's despondent at the development, to say the least, and it reminded me of a column I wrote for the Star Observer while I was there.

Seems it all came true and then some (click to you-know-what):