is New York City dead?

no you're dead

okay

I mean, IDK, I was out in bushwick recently on a saturday night and it still seemed happening and teeming with young artsy cutting edge types brimming with energy. However it's been rough for a good amount of time now as far as being a city that young people without a bankroll or a professional job can live in, and that definitely cuts into the creative energy of the city some. I mean I don't even think the bronx offers the kinds of rents today that could be had 20 years ago in brooklyn.

like if you mean "dead" as in "no longer can birth a 'scene' the way it could in the 60s/70s/80s/90s, that might be true just because rents are so high.

I think that is what I mean. Although "scene" sounds a little tinny/reductive, scenes kind of matter. A city births a scene which creates stuff that matters.

Is Paris dead? How about London? Those cities are pretty expensive too, and have been for some time. New York is still a place that attracts ambitious young people, including artists, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

well yeah, I mean a scene as in the beats or the greenwich village folk scene or disco or no wave or whatever. Like the combination of cheap living and high density and educational and arts institutions and economic activity that allows for a scene that actually produces something of worth. Like I just don't think there are many corners of the city left where a bunch of musicians could live close to one another and work more or less full time on their music and pay rent waiting tables part time or whatever. And to the extent such pockets exist, they're scattered at the edges of the city instead of centralized.

All cities are dead because culture travels faster through the Internet than it ever could geographically.

Rising rents making it hard for young people to live there unless they're being bankrolled is basically true for all major international cities now. Even Berlin's getting expensive these days.

But hey, there are always aspiring artists with trust funds, so the city will never die

i don't know the deal w/rents in NYC but i find it funny when people come out to L.A. from there and rhapsodize about how comparatively inexpensive the rent is here.

I don't go out much anymore, so maybe there's some lively cheap shit I'm missing out on.

It's also really hard for some people in late middle age (w/out a LUCRATIVE CAREER) to live here.

I'm also old and have a family and work a lot, and I just don't really know what's happening anymore. When we went out in Bushwick, we saw some local DJs/electronic artists in a little club and it was absurdly packed and seemed pretty alive.

I guess another thing I've noticed is that galleries tend to show artists from all over the US and world, and I'm guessing that's more true than it used to be. But that's also an internet-erasing-borders thing.

All cities are dead because culture travels faster through the Internet than it ever could geographically.

― treeship 2, Tuesday, February 6, 2018 3:28 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is pretty otm

it's all about the rust belt, my friend

we eat the cheeses here too

they are artisanal

our cities are the envy of all, their livability is primo

Here's how I think about New York, after my last visit there last summer:

New York is good and the only actual large city in America on the metric of everything existing there. Big cities are the ones where there is everything; you can tell Seattle is a small city because there are things that are not here.

New York is bad in that it smells of garbage. In the summer, hot garbage.

If more American cities grow to populations in the millions, New York will be more dead by comparison due declining uniqueness. Is this going to happen? Who knows.

i kinda want to leave, but i have a job i like okay and an unusually fortuitous living situation. there's no real reason for me to be here; i don't partake of the cultural opportunities available

it'll probably be the subway that finally drives me away

NYC: where if you can make it there as a successful artist, you can also have a successful time crowdfunding your medical bills.

Telecommuting will finish it off.

Less of a joke, not as dead as San Francisco?

Feels like people have been waiting for a rust belt/flyover city to take over since our traditional metropolises are more 'playground for the rich' than ever but I still don't hear kids looking to move to Columbus or Pittsburgh.

Have the media decided where the New Portland is?

There was a Tooze tweet recently, where he showed stats on how professional actors in the USA, vastly outnumber coal miners. I forgot by much, but it was significantly much.

I do hear murmurings about ppl aspiring to move to Pittsburgh, Detroit, Denver, a few others

According to @BLS_gov and @TheEconomist there are 51,200 people employed as coal miners in the US v. 785k in 1920. In 2017 there are more florists, actors and personal fitness instructors than miners. pic.twitter.com/m913tHokI2

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) January 2, 2018

Less of a joke, not as dead as San Francisco?

Feels like people have been waiting for a rust belt/flyover city to take over since our traditional metropolises are more 'playground for the rich' than ever but I still don't hear kids looking to move to Columbus or Pittsburgh.

― louise ck (milo z), Tuesday, February 6, 2018 6:27 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hear rumblings about Pittsburgh now and then. Also tons of my friends moved to Philly over the years and it did seem to be producing bands at a good clip for a while.

And no one talks about how many administrative assistant, secretarial and receptionist jobs were lost in NYC due to automation, because... women, a lot of woc. Breadwinners for their families. Fuck coal miners and their sooty tears.

I’m moving back to new york soon bc of my job but it’s not a nice place to live.

I still have my apartment in Astoria. But I really don't want to go back. I dread having to deal with the subway.

The subway is inexcusably unpleasant

i get more anxious/aggro in nyc in my old age. i don't know what it is. impatient. people bug me more. i think its just a case of the olds. i will always love the city though. in general. i've loved hanging out there my whole life.

it really is me being set in my ways. we stayed in brooklyn one summer with the kids and i seriously didn't want to leave the hotel room. get on a subway to go to a museum in manhattan? kill me now.

Everything here is comically more stressful than any other place.

I car commute to the suburbs now and it's glorious to not be taking the subway anymore

Why is the ceiling always dripping down there?

Second and third tier cities could attract people by just showing how messed up the MTA is in their promo material.

I haven't lived in nyc full time for almost two years now. I miss it, but I really don't miss it. Just the thought of having to take the subway to work gives me anxiety.

Part of me really regrets accepting another job here. As a teen my dream was living here but it’s not that fun.

NYC misses Yerac and Znarf

Fix the subway and get rid of GOP madness and I am there!

fuck the subway, i drive most places now. and when i do take the subway it's in the middle of the day.
sorry can't do anything about the GOP.

Do you have to go in and out of manhattan a lot or no?

I remember taking the subway maybe 1-2 times a month when I worked in Williamsburg. It was the best. My tweety truck got sold like 3 years ago.

i've honestly not experienced the subway horrors that many have, but i will say that the subway is nearly unusable on nights and weekends

just not enough trains

I want to get myself to love it again.

Not the subway—the city

The last job I had there, I almost had a breakdown every time I took the subway. I would sometimes using the plodding R so I wouldn't have to deal with the insaneness of the 4,5,6 during rush hour. That train really has the worst people to be stuck with in the tunnel.

I do drive into the city regularly. Many mornings I drive in and drop my wife off at work and then drive home. It helps that we live near the Manhattan Bridge and her office is in chinatown. We also might drive in and park for any number of special events.

I had the same commute. Bushwick to East Harlem. L to union square than the green line. Sometimes I found myself wishing I would just spontaneously die.

Interesting, ian. I don’t have too much experience driving in manhattan but when I’ve done it I didn’t have a good time.

Last time I tried to take the L train during rush hour I almost had a panic attack trying to change from the G at Metropolitan; just a slow moving mass of people slowly slithering thru the tunnel. Really grim.

‘Hook’ plus the Pepsi logos suggests 1991

But Victor Borge suggests 1983
It’s impossible to pin down because it’s a composite
That’s one of the reasons why it’s great

Borge also played Carnegie Hall in ‘88, but yeah it’s surely a fool’s errand to make this make sense.

Smells of weed everywhere

otm

I’d never heard of this artist , Ken keeley, but I think he’s pretty good

Joe Camel’s presence is a solid vote for 1990
The HoJo’s was there until 2006

HoJo's was on the corner iirc, not mid block. Also does anyone remember a Times Sq B&N location? I don't.
It's all recognizable but slightly askew.

Yeah, not bad

Noticed that too and I recall is that bookstores were more prevalent 35 years ago. It’s possible I guess

the main thing that looks off is how clean and uncluttered the bldg on the right is
like someone dropped a corporate hq in times sq
find myself somewhat buying into the illusion but second guessing
even that mtv building has way more shit going on

Well also the total absence of anything lascivious or low-brow? Wouldn’t there have been at least one triple-X marquee?

https://hellgatenyc.com/brooklyns-tallest-tower-radiates-pure-evil-and-i-love-it

What’s funny about this building is that it’s on the same block as Junior’s. So if you’re ever out and need to eat cheesecake or sit at a bar from 1982, head for the dark tower

And then if you want to enjoy a live show like it's 1962 go right across the street to the reborn Brooklyn Paramount and behold the dark tower from there.

Gov. Kathy Hochul's (D-NY) response to anyone who doesn't want the National Guard or state police to search their bags on the NYC subways:

"Then go home. We're not going to search you, you can say no, but you're not taking the subway." pic.twitter.com/hJ1fecGdx8

— The Recount (@therecount) March 7, 2024

“you can take a helicopter just like me”

it's going to extra weird summer in the city this year i feel

get extra*

It’s a stupid answer, sure, but it’s also a stupid question

Big restless energy in the city tonight imo

it really is isn't it

We call New York City the Port-Au-Prince of America. We feel the pain our Haitian neighbors feel as the situation grows dire. 

To the people of Haiti and our own Haitian community here in New York City, know that we stand with you today and always.

— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) March 13, 2024

sigh how long til the next election again?

as the situation GROWS dire????

I agree Adams is an asshole and a fabulist... but, to be honest, there is a huge Haitian community around Nostrand/Flatbush and this whole 'controversy' sounds more xenophobic than something useful, tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHAiFYrOQM8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_5c2XpYI5k

"We call New York City the X of America"
"No we don't?"
"That's racist"

come on.

The mayor hates his own city and thinks the people in NYC who look like the folks who love in haiti are the ones causing all the problems

I'm not defending Adams at all, he is horrible. I'm just saying the way people have been trying to prove that no one calls NYC Port au Prince seems an overreaction, one that stems a bit from also not knowing about Haitians living here, that's all.

Adams being horrible and making a mistake does not negate the fact that people in NYC can be xenophobic in more subtle ways

I'm sorry, I'm having a bad day – I am not trying to be combative, specially with a topic related to Adams, who's horrible in all ways to refugees and stateless people right now. I just see a lot of casual xenophobia around my neighborhood (I live near a lot of Haitians) and it sucks, and I get defensive. Sorry again to you both

I get what ur getting at tho.

There are many many ways to parse what he’s saying and none of them are good for either ny-ers of any stripe or the ppl of haiti

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/nyregion/migrants-debit-cards-nyc.html wow $1400 a month for food.

My wife and I spend about $600 a month at the grocery store for the two of us, and we eat good food and buy things that would be considered luxuries by the kind of people who get pissed off at migrants or poor people on food assistance programs, so $1400 for four people seems pretty good.

Man, i don’t live in that food desert, but that seems helpful.

It’s starting with 10 whole families, because they funded it initially from what they dug out the couch. 10 families?!

USDA national numbers https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/Cost_Of_Food_Low_Moderate_Liberal_Food_Plans_February_2024.pdf

low cost plan is about $250 per person per month. round up for NYC and then don't ask people to eat shit, and you get $1400+ for a family of four.

I doubt migrants have a lot of access to facilities for food storage or cooking in that area. Some pleb with a chest freezer and an instant pot could probably live like a king or whatever

https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-hires-high-profile-lawyer-to-defend-mayor-adams-against-sexual-assault-lawsuit

Adams should be ashamed in more ways than one

same lawyer as elon musk lmao

Weird that Quinn does that at way below market rate. Only shows that they feel like they’re getting something else out of it. Whole thing is fucked up and I dont understand why a city law dept attorney can’t defend him.

never thought i would miss di blasio, but this fucking guy is the worst

and it's only been like 18 months since people were all like 'National Democrats Can Learn from Eric Adams'

It really seems like there’s nothing good about him. DeBlas at least had a few bright spots. Universal pre-k stands out.

Windy af today
Wish I was at the top of the Brooklyn dark tower

Swayin’

I went to Hamburger America today and damn if that isn't the most excellent burger (the Motz Onion Burger).

Will try

on first impression the Brooklyn Paramount is really a great music room, and gorgeous.

https://i.imgur.com/rrR5mKc.jpeg

These adams headlines are making me lol

(From hellgate, great site, thank you to whoever recommended it here)