It’s not as if one day everything is different. Change sneaks up. Was it the first meatpacking building to turn into apartments? The first restaurant to attract bridge and tunnelers? The first condo? The first hotel? The first bottle service? The first stiletto to trip across grease-slicked cobblestones? The first boutique? The first photo shoot? The last transgender hooker to give up on the neighborhood?



When did you realize the meatpackers had been sent packing, that you’d never see another cow spine tumble off an offal truck?



In the spring of 2008 Gene Daly, armed with a low fidelity pink camera, recorded the streets of the gritty Meatpacking District during part of its transition to the ultra trendy destination neighborhood now known as MePa.

— BJW