Christopher Hitchens wrote a wonderful article for the July issue of Vanity Fair called “Last Call, Bohemia,” a paen to, and appeal for, that preserve of artists, musicians, social misfits, and rebels that becomes responsible for the progression and evolution of a nation’s culture. And yet, Hitchens doesn’t beg for more independent bookstores and all-night coffee shops, or cheaper rents and studio space. Instead, he comes at this alarming problem, the loss of space dedicated to Bohemia and bohemians, from an angle dear to us here at the I’On Group: the built environment.

Hitchens eloquently makes a case for preserving the iconic, quirky, and older buildings that give pockets of bohemia like Greenwich Village, the Left Bank in Paris, and Soho in London, their distinctive personality. In Greenwich Village (currently under attack by bigger-is-better developers), for example, the human scale St. Vincent Hospital’s O’Toole Building is being threatened with demolition; if that effort succeeds, it will be to make way for a new hospital building, all of the designs for which “look like a plan made by Donald Trump’s people on an especially uninspired day.” Not an encouraging statement.

So what does any of this have to do with Mixson? Well, if you’ve been to any of the North Charleston art events – Metamorphosis, Evolution, Kulture Klash – then you’ve glimpsed the bohemian group that North Charleston, and the Park Circle area especially, shelters. If you’re not yet familiar with the North Chuck scene, then surprise! You’re living in close proximity to a vibrant, artistic, and under-appreciated community that hosts events like the Big Lebowski Celebration (at Madra Rua Irish Pub) and live graffiti on temporary plywood walls.

Pictures from North Charleston’s Metamorphosis art event in Feb. 2008

Part of what fosters this bohemian community is, of course, affordable, interesting, and, more and more, sustainable housing choices. We hope that Mixson will only add to North Charleston’s availability of this sort of housing, and that as a whole our growing neighborhood will become a strong participant in what makes the city’s bohemian community thrive.

And to close, there is nothing better than Hitchens’ own final sentence from “Last Call, Bohemia.”

“Those who don’t live in such threatened districts nonetheless have a stake in this quarrel and some skin in this game, because on the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but—more impoverishingly still—we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.”

Filed under: I'On Group, Mixson, Urban Sustainability on July 7th, 2008