"A beautifully conceived and elegantly executed book that employs a magnifying glass to understand New York City. Focusing on bars in downtown Manhattan, Ocejo reveals the changing face of New York City in all its richness and complexity, enabling us to understand the key players in gentrification over time--old-timers, new arrivals, politicians, business owners, and activists--and how they interact and influence each other." --William B. Helmreich, author of The New York Nobody Knows "From the artist cabarets of Montmartre and the juke joints of Harlem to the speakeasies of Chicago, the urban demimonde has long been integral to city identity. In today's city, nightlife plays an even more elevated role in places like New York's downtown, where once blighted districts are now thriving nocturnal playgrounds. Ocejo's thorough and thoroughly engaging work shines a light on the city after dark. It is the best book yet to examine the serious business of urban frivolity." --Richard Lloyd, author of Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City "This book offers a richly detailed picture of the new nighttime activities that are reshaping central cities around the world.

Focusing on the rapid growth of bars on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Ocejo shows their remarkable transformation from a skid row institution to a cultural niche of the postindustrial urban economy. This is one of the best studies of New York to emerge in recent years." --Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places "In Upscaling Downtown , Ocejo gives a wide view of commercial gentrification and the conflicts between different factions in the Lower East Side, East Village, and Bowery. He presents a broad and critical perspective on the contemporary consumer megacity and provides a window onto wider issues of urban renewal, planning, policing, and community." --Paul E. Willis, Princeton University.