New York City- classic or dud?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (580 of them)

I love NY and have only had one encounter that threatened to make real the "angry/stressed" stereotype, when I was yelled at by a carny on Coney Island in 1993. The West Village all the way by the river is glorious, it's my favorite place to wake up and go out walking. I'm so sad I haven't been to NY for such a long time. I used to spend every other weekend there, not to mention an entire summer about 10 years ago. For me NY is inseparable from a sense of heightened reality and the euphoria that comes when you're young and on holiday (even if it's just the weekend, or spring break) and have nothing to do but wander about and meet friends. Also NY has always seemed to hold out all kinds of romantic possibilities, not that many of them have been realized in my case. Anyways for these reasons and more my idea of NYC is sort of antithetical to actually living there. But it's an idea I've pondered often enough. Sigh.

I've never met a city I didn't like, really. There's too much stuff to get bored, even if it's just looking at the architecture and determining from it, from people's gait, from demographics, etc., something of the city's history and culture. The only city that's become even slightly mundane to me is Chicago--which is stupid, since it's such a huge place that even after 25 years of living here (with a significant 5-year interruption) I haven't seen even a small fraction of it.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

I figure ragging on a city means you are (a) too self-absorbed to hold your head up and look around; (b) stuck on some pedantic point about city vs. city; (c) had some overwhelmingly negative experience which has clouded your ability to make a fair judgment. City are huge agglomerations of people and are bound to be interesting.

Or maybe that's just me in Polyanna mode.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

What if you just rag on cities in general?

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

That's more acceptable in my book; I do it myself sometimes.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

The only thing I hate about New York is all the bicyclists, esp. the delivery guys who refuse to follow even the most basic traffic safety laws (they run red lights, they ride five times faster than any car on the road, they ride on the sidewalks, and they give me no signal that they're about to turn a sharp corner and run me over while I'm using my "right of way" to cross the street).

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:47 (twenty-one years ago) link

watch out in two years or so cuz i'm comin gunnin for you toots

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

What if you just rag on cities in general?

I am uncollected and unrecycled city Trash.

The only thing I hate about New York is all the bicyclists

You're lucky that the Dutch didn't really make it New Amsterdam then.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

The only thing I hate about New York is all the bicyclists

and I hate yappy little rat-dogs too. other than that i love new york.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

What if you rag on cities, suburbs, and small towns in general? I don't think there's any place I'd be where I wouldn't miss something about some other place. *sigh*

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'd move to rural Michigan in a flash if I had any hope of finding a good job there.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ditto me and New Mexico

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

and I hate yappy little rat-dogs too.

but what about Dorothy?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

I hate the smug dog owners; they're worse then smug marrieds really. (Do not read if you own a dog and live in NYC.)

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

Really, Amateurist? Why?

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

Umm, because http://a4.cpimg.com/image/96/91/8551574-d667-027801E3-.jpg

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

Amateurist = a "Yooper" SHOCKAH!!!!!

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Yooper"?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, I mean, I grew up in rural Michigan and it is really nice in the fall. I guess I was thinking along the lines of why there, as opposed to somewhere more topographically interesting like New England or something.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

"yooper" = U.P.er

I was a lowper myself.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

Huh uh no I've never been to the Upper Peninsula. (Ha, in my world "UP" means something else entirely so you had be alarmed for a minute--I'm guessing only Nabsico would understand that particular reaction, though.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

If this were RL, I could hold up my hand and point to exactly where I lived!

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

had be = had me

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ooh that's a nice picture. Riverside Park?

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

"UP"

That's what you do when you go to the men's room!

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

except for those other times

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

Mary, which dogs do you think are the smuggest? Personally, those French )of "Freedon" IYW) Bulldogs are the ones who really get my goat, always looking down their smushed-in snouts at me, qui do they think they are ??!

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's really just the fact that I don't have room for myself in my apartment, so I can't understand those who are able to house dogs...and the fact that there are so many of them always walking around the streets with their dogs gives me pause.

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't quite get the the dogs who are so small that they don't get walked, they get carried. I mean, get a cat.

― rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

There are apparently a lot of smug married dog owners who look like me here in Jersey City. My landlord is always telling his wife "I just saw rosemary! Kissing her boyfriend! (I like that my landlords think that I have one.)

― rosemary (rosemary), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't quite get the the dogs who are so small that they don't get walked, they get carried.

In Brooklyn they walk 'em. So there are always yappy little rat-dogs underfoot wherever I go, making me nervous.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

are you an elephant?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

i'm a white blood cell.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think we're extending the city-as-organism metaphor a little too far

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

Amateurist, I spent two years of the weirdest years of my life in rural Michigan, and as such I must say that no, I have no idea what you're thinking here. For one thing, that picture includes sunlight, which as it turns out does not exist in northern Michigan. Also it does not include people, which are rare in rural Michigan but let me tell you, most of the time they're not rare enough. Your chosen social life will consist of spending hours watching people smoke in the sorts of places that high school kids colonize -- cafes, parking lots, maybe even benches next to a bank -- with a bunch of guys who've had too much acid and 10,000 girls who look exactly like Meg White, not to mention all the other odd people from their mid-twenties to their forties or even fifties who've been forced to turn to high school kids for social interaction. Some of them will have the excuse that they're professors, and as such can be expected to have comfortable social relations with young people, but some of the others will just be oddball rednecks who sell everyone weed, and if you ever wind up drinking beer at their freaky little houses with fourteen year old girls wandering around you will get more than a passing vibe of the guys Laura Palmer was hanging out with before she died. Oh, rural Michigan is great, don't get me wrong, it's wonderful and all of the kids believe really passionately in just the dumbest stuff, and they think moving to Chicago is the good-luck equivalent of becoming a movie star or something, and they are loads and loads of fun if you think it's funny to, like, run down the street in the middle of the night singing "Who Killed Bambi" or break into the guitar store and sit around playing Stones songs on their best amps until the police show up and take you to jail for the night. But watch the hell out.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

NB: my earlier responses to this thread may have been colored by the fact that at the time, New York was stealing my girlfriend. I've forgiven it now, and knowing such lovely people there has helped. I still stand by all the expense-and-annoyance stuff: I wouldn't be headed there if I didn't have a great big academic free pass on a lot of that stuff!

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

I stand by my assessment. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

B-b-but I spent every summer for 10 years in rural Michigan (not in the north, rather somewhere between Hastings and Kalamazoo) and liked it a lot. I remember lots of sunshine (also mosquitos)!

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

Bah, total lower-Michigan pansy action! I have to admit that despite my ranting I have a really fond place in my heart for northern Michigan, up where it's like a dirtier more incestuous Dunedin where everyone is like the White Stripes if they were working at Big Boy or in telemarketing instead of being rock stars. I admit it, I'm nostalgic.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 18:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

My love for NYC is based on going there a couple of times, but it seems even more classic in ILX terms. No offence to the wonderful male ILXers, but my mental image of NYCILX revolves around the women. It seemed like the most glamorous and enticing city in the world to me anyway, and having met Mary and Felicity, and seen pics of a couple more (several pics of Ally), and hearing you talk about fashion shopping and the like, and the fact that you're all clever and interesting and all that, this bunch of female NYCILXers is about as glamorous a circle as I've ever had any remore connection to. It makes NYC even more appealing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

Martin imagines the group of us poncing around like Sex in the City, I just know it. As long as I don't have to wear those ridiculous outfits Sarah Jessica sports I'm ok with it.

ANyway, being yelled at by a carny is like the greatest thing that could possibly happen, my god I wish I could get yelled at by a carny.

― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

How about having five Coney Island carnys live in your basement for a week? That happened to me two years ago. They were actually really nice. One could play the Super Mario Bros. song on guitar really well. He was a good cook too.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

it would be easier for us to believe you lot didn't ponce (wtf?) about like sex in the city if you didn't cultivate the illusion!

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

what about the bearded lady?

― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

Does a hairy hippie girl count?

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

only up to 16 oz.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

If hairy hippies counted, then all of Amherst is a fucking carnival, dude.

― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ally, it's really not like Sex and the City, a programme I don't like at all. It's much more like real and intelligent people, but with those glamorous qualities as well. I am aware that much of it is an illusion, but it's one I enjoy.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

Last night I went to a rock show at Luxx and a bearded lady did fire-eating right in front of the stage during one of the songs. Somebody came on the loudspeaker and said "another club got shut down for pyrotechnics! you MUST stop! i don't want to see ANY open flames in here!" at which point everyone threw down their cigarettes like 15-year-olds caught smoking in the bathroom, and then we all realized that the person on the loudspeaker wasn't talking to EVERYONE, just the bearded lady. Okay it was just me who did that. I picked my flattened cigarette back up and re-lit it (I'm cheap), but I kept my 'open flame' well-hidden. The bearded lady was the real deal: suit, long hair, FULL beard. Beat that, Sex and the City!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

sarah jessica'd have to set something else on fire

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

no dude. she goes brazilian.

Has anyone ever gone in the WORLD'S SMALLEST PERSON!!!!!!!!!! booth at Coney Island? Don't. You walk in to this room and around this divider and there's this tiny woman in a wheelchair that's on top of a table. She looks at you. You suddenly feel horrified by the fact that you paid $1 to see this and that she's two feet away and looking right in your eyes. She says, "Can you spare some change? I'm saving up for an electric wheelchair," and motions her nubby arm to a jar on the table. You are looking around, trying to pretend as if you came into this booth looking for a bathroom or a friend. You quickly fumble in your pockets and dump some change in the jar and make a quick exit. The friend that came in with you says, "Fuck that! I paid a dollar!" and continues to stare. You go outside and tell your friends that were too scared to enter that they HAVE to go in. "It's amazing," you say, and you feel some satisfaction in knowing they will share your horror.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 19:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

Skipping 480 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.