You should actually try Brooklyn. For the last 10-15 years, the soul of the city seems to have migrated to this, the most populous borough in the City. Each neighborhood is different, but the thing you hear all the time from the old timers is that it's like the old New York.
I avoid Manhattan unless I have to go work there. It's nice to bike around, too. But so much of it has become a hipster version of the Epcott Center. We shouldn't forget, though, that in the 70s the city was pretty squalid: garbage piled up, violent crime the like of which our generation could scarce comprehend, rampant corruption, and a general meanness and indifference from the average citizen. Not to mention that the city was bankrupt. You could say that in the 70s, the city also lost its edge. Remember also that NY has been through lots of different phases, and will continue to do so.
We should avoid the temptation to wish for less-than-ideal conditions in places we like to visit as tourists: a cheap holiday in other people's misery, as the Sex Pistols wrote. Also, the NY you see portrayed in a film like this is very much like the NY of Woody Allen's films and Sex in the City: largely an idealized fantasy; the imaginary New York of a privileged few, which then becomes a substitute for the real thing in the popular imagination.
Mariano Paniello
Brooklyn
PS I agree with you about Starbucks! The McDonald's of coffee.
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TracesOfLove
19 years ago
"You should actually try Brooklyn. For the last 10-15 years, the soul of the city seems to have migrated to this, the most populous borough in the City. Each neighborhood is different, but the thing you hear all the time from the old timers is that it's like the old New York."
Thanks for the advice! I have been wanting to move to Brooklyn for a long time but I had no idea what it would be like there. It just sounded like a cool place to go. But since it's still New York state how's the smoking situation? I'm sure people can't smoke in bars or clubs. It just seems weird to be in a bar and not see people smoking while there damaging their livers.
"We should avoid the temptation to wish for less-than-ideal conditions in places we like to visit as tourists: a cheap holiday in other people's misery, as the Sex Pistols wrote. "
I hear what your saying. I was actually very happy when the city was getting cleaned up. Living only an hour away I would go to NYC every weekend and loved feeling a whole lot safer. But man, talk about one extreme to another!
If I had a nickel for every cigarette your mom smoked, I'd be dead.
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dolorespark
19 years ago
It's true, you can't smoke in bars or restaurants here. But...I'm a fairly late night person, and am a regular at a few bars, where I'm friends with the owners and/or bartenders; and at a few places, after they've officially closed down, you can smoke. A lot of the time they let the regulars stay behind.
I smoke when I'm out drinking, and at first it was a real annoyance, especially in winter. On the whole, though, it's hard to argue with the statistics for people who work in bars or restaurants and their higher rate of smoking-related illnesses.
Yeah, Manhattan has gone to something of an extreme in its cleanup. But one thing that still annoys me is how it's all credited to Giuliani, who, while he did do a lot of positive things, happened to be mayor at a time when crime was declining in big cities across the country. This was due largely to economic improvement under the eeee-vil Clinton (remember that nightmare of peace and prosperity)?
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