New York City- classic or dud?

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It's not hate and I'm not MOVING here, I LIVE here. It's not jerkiness and it's not bullshit. It's just what it's like. Be a widdle more defensive why don't ya? NY is obviously a freakish environment. That's all.

― Nude Spock, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Quite frankly, I think the only person who fits the awful, derogatory NY stereotype around here is you. Is it too close to home or something?

Is it true that subways in Japan have people to shove you into the trains?

― Ally, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I haven't come across'em. I think I am just too much a freak so they all run away when they see me. hah! Just kidding. Japanese do have a knack at waking up at the station they need to get off.

― nathalie, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

How so, Ally? Am I being "negative"? Read my post in the Buttfuck, Nebraska thread. I think you're just a typical NYer, after all, unable or unwilling to see it's faults. You simply want it to be "the fucking best". New York: classic. New York Classic attitude (when asked about NY problems): "Ah, yeah, but you get that everywhere... you still can't beat New York"

― Nude Spock, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I am a native of SF (well since I was nine), and I now find it cliquish and a very backroom scene. Either your in or out. There are alot of cowboys from Omaha that came in for the dot-com twitch and are now night managers at hotels. They're all very cool, all the clubs are very cool, everyone dressed to the current styles...YAWN, NYC rules! I was there the first week of August, it was very humid but I got used to it, I found people very helpful if you asked. I am encouraged by Ally's posts that I could find reasonable rent there. The scene there felt more inclusive. When people come to hear music or see art, it is that that they're there for, it seemed. Not just to be seen as it feels to me in Cali these days.

― jameslucas, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

NYC is weird. It's like everybody's great friends when they're out, but everyone's too busy to do a lot of "friend-stuff" unless you happen to live within a few blocks. It's pretty cliquey here, too. But, yeah, when you go out, people aren't all about EXcluding you. The youth scene is about getting drunk, laid and having fun. To be harsh just makes people not want to hang with you. If you go to the same clubs, your bound to make barfly friends... or starbuck's friends! Most NYC hanging out (seeing bands and such) seems to get planned through EMAIL and INTERNET, actually! (from what I've noticed in the last year).

― Nude Spock, Friday, 31 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

James, when I lived in SF some years back I was the night-manager of a hotel. Greatest job I ever had, real kid-in-a-candy-store stuff if sex'n'drugs are your thing and you're not too discriminating.

― dave q, Saturday, 1 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

well dave q, I'm not knocking being a night manager, it's the sex and drugs part that I'm sick of (I mean part of it I'm sick of). It's just more "rock star" affectations, which SF admittedly wrote the book on (S&D) but the attendant elitism is what I see. And the funny part is, these dot-com "invaders" are not "stars", at least from where I sit, like my employer, they front the act, which is a sad attempt at hiding in a hollow shell floated on debt-paper and denial. At least in New York, you are all in there, and if you can stay at it through the five year probabtion period you are part of the biggest clique on earth ;)

― jameslucas, Saturday, 1 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

one year passes...

what an interesting museum piece this thread is (it's pre-9/11). and what a wonder ILX's random function is!

― Tad (llamasfur), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 05:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jimmy the Mod's "Classic center of the impending apocalypse" dated 30 Aug 01 is spine-chilling

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 05:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ha ha looks like Nitsuh changed his mind.

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

I can't decide if it's overrated or not, but unquestionably classic.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

I love NYC. My favourite city other than London, and the only other place I can imagine living.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

NYC is Classic Classic Classic. and overrated and self-absorbed, just like my favorite people!

I'm going to restrain myself from commenting on the San Francisco comments except to say: please.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

Haha, you read. my. mind.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

wow, August 30th 2001, I think that's the day I gave my dissertation in. It does seem like a very long time ago. From what I know of NYC, ie NYC ilxors, I'd say it was great.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well.... I'll be landing at LaGuardia in (looking at watch) five hours! Yay!

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:47 (twenty-one years ago) link

New York's incredible. No matter where else I live, I'm certain I wanna die here. And once I'm gone, I want my ashes flung into the Gowanus Canal from a great height.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

expensive black ass-pants

haha, I am wearing the expensive black ass-pants in this family.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm sure NYC is a great city, but since I hate cities I'm gonna have to say DUD

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

Classic. I miss it.

― mike a (mike a), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

i only planned to live here for a year, and it's now been almost three and i can't really imagine leaving. there are many things i hate (mainly cuz i grew up on a farm -- i'm a country boy at heart), but i'll be here until it's time to raise a family... it's definitely a classic.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

"I want my ashes flung into the Gowanus Canal from a great height."

From the G train!

― Benjamin (benjamin), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

over the Smith-9th station.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jimmy the Mod's "Classic center of the impending apocalypse" dated 30 Aug 01 is spine-chilling.

Yes, but in spite of 9/11, it's wrong -- Los Angeles is the CCOTIA cf. Nathanael West, Steve Erickson, the end of Gravity's Rainbow, the Doors, Charles Manson, Miracle Mile, Lew Archer's "There's nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure," and Phil Ochs'/St. Etienne's "The World Began In Eden And Ended in Los Angeles." Either that or Tokyo, cf. Godzilla.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

I have been in NYC exactly once -- when I was about 11, I insisted my father drive through it while we were on our way to Pennsylvania, so that I could see where the Marvel Comics offices were. We drove down Park Avenue at about 2 a.m. on a Sunday night, in the middle of a late-spring garbage strike, and I missed the Marvel offices because I was looking on the wrong side of the street. It took us several tries to get out of the city because someone had switched the signs so that every time we tried to head towards Jersey, we ended up right back where we'd started.

And yet I'm still going to say Classic.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 16:57 (twenty-one years ago) link

hstencil in NYC mk. 2 scorecard (first six months):

- Job gets crappier
- Go out with girl only to get dumped
- Hate roommates/apartment

Yep, still love it here.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

I agree with Daddino. LA really does ooze the simultaneously wistful and wonderful, fin-d'existence feeling of slow decay captured so well by that 1970's Elektra sound and in particular our pal Warren Zevon:

And if California slides into the ocean
like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this hotel will be standing
until I pay my bill.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yay NYC. I can't imagine any place better.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

Teeny, how come you never come out with us? I know you have the expensive black ass-pants for it.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 2 April 2003 17:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

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

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