Everyone and no one belongs to New York
newstatesman.com
newstatesman.com
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, steeped in the lore of that city. Like most Chicagoans, I was aware that we were Second City, in reference to NYC, but felt no sense of deference to it.
Incollege, I fell in love with a girl who was obsessed with NYC. She loved it more than me, and it made me resent the city even more than I did already. What could possibly be so special about it?
Well, she dumped me, but somehow, I was the one who ended up building my life in NYC. I moved there for grad school, and once the city grabs you, it holds on tight.
When you move to NYC, you are forced to adapt to a completely different environment and way of life from every other place in America. You learn to endure countless indignations from a city that bends to no person's will. But your reward is the survivor's pride and the right to imbibe from one of the richest anthropological pools on the planet. It's literally intoxicating. For a time, my two siblings and I all lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood. It was a golden age.
If you live in NYC long enough, you will have the experience of "vanishing New York", in which the places that hold your memories of the city inexorably close, and the friends you made shuffle off to other places. It's not your New York anymore. It's some new generation's place to come of age. They'll discover institutions that feel timeless, but are destined to be quite temporary.
New York is somehow never and always the same.
I had family in the East Village, spent many a summer in the city throughout the late 70's - 80's. It was very different from what most folks experience today, I don't think the under 40 crowd understands what Giuliani did for that city and how he basically made it safe and livable. It was like an insane asylum before him and anyone who spent some time there can attest to that. The experience was sort of like a war you fought, the place tried to kill you but fuck no, you were going to do everything you could to get out alive. Haven't been back for around 30 years, still have a little PTSD when it comes to that place...hahaha....
Edit: Although, upon looking at this more, in NYC the decline was really pronounced at the beginning of Giuliani's tenure. I am politically predisposed to discredit Giuliani because of his more recent antics, but it's also true that bad people can sometimes accomplish good things. I looked for evidence on this topic and it does seem that the increased enforcement of crimes during Giuliani's mayorship probably had some significant effects on crime. I regret the implication that it did not, since it seems I was likely incorrect.
My priors (from a Bayesian perspective) that lead, which in high doses provably can result in brain damage, can have more subtle effects on behavioral inhibition and executive function is pretty high, but I still do not know that I would feel confident saying the evidence is clear.
The 90's was when the first generation not exposed to tetraethyl lead reached their teens
Was that an overall trend in that rural and suburban areas were equally more dangerous, or was it concentrated in cities?
I am not an expert - and would love to learn more - but during those times I think there was crime across the country - but in most places it was pockets of crime, mostly separated from the day to day average citizens.. it seems to me that NY at the time, the average citizen had to be on guard and knew they were a few bodies away from being the day's victim..
I feel that much of the rest of the country had crime in certain areas, but certainly not a normal experience on the subway of va/dc/md for example - of course you could wander into areas where the daily normal was different.
So stats could say 'it was just NY but everywhere else..' - but I'm not sure stats show enough by where/when to show a better picture of '90% daily commuters experience violence themselves or witness it near' in X-city overall - or is it 30% or commuters, mostly from / in neighborhood Y or Z - but most people in city V don't see in person and aren't constantly worried.
If there are stats showing those kinds of things I'd love to learn more - and see what percentage of the country felt the way subway riders in NY felt in the 80s, and how localized or not those things were. I'd guess that the density of NY meant the violence affected more people because more people were nearby to witness it - as opposed to most other places.
random thoughts.
https://images.app.goo.gl/uSbaDcnVffYQ8VhJ8
Another neat thing, crime tracked nationwide almost exactly with childhood lead exposure https://images.app.goo.gl/ddYD1c3YdxB5wE866
There is a stark difference in the people I know in NYC who moved in later than early/mid 2000s which aligns roughly with your 40s cutoff.
The before people all have stories of being robbed/mugged/assaulted and/or having friends who experienced the same. The cutoff varies by where the people moved in as some areas stayed rougher longer.
Most people I know after have not experienced nor know anyone who has experienced this.
This is especially true of zoomers / young millennials who moved into more cloistered neighborhoods in doormen buildings..
It gives people a very different perspective on the recent catch&release bail reform (which despite what people assumed, does apply to violent crimes), not prosecuting turnstile jumpers, end of stop&frisk, etc).
The pushback seems to be coming now that the surge in violence has spilled out of the poorer neighborhoods into areas where the more comfortable live/work/shop/leisure.
>The before people all have stories of being robbed/mugged/assaulted and/or having friends who experienced the same.
I moved to NYC in early 2000s and I can vouch for not having stories of being robbed/mugged/assaulted. Even after many very late nights out, I do not recall even seeing a fight in Manhattan. It was basically Disneyworld and I had no idea why an older person would be impressed when I would suggest walking around at night alone in NYC. I left a few years ago, and it was still pretty safe, although over the years, the homeless population had started to grow in Manhattan, especially after Bloomberg's reign in my opinion.
I think what the local complainers take issue with is that New York being a mating ritual for young well-to-do transplants in the first place.
Without enough construction we can even ignore rents/prices, and say if people arrive (a smaller number of) people also need to leave.
If NYC doesn't want this quasi-0-sum dynamic, it needs to build a lot more than it has.
Back to the original sentiment, being gentrified by people who are themselves going to leave after a few years has a certain extra sting to it, I can only imagine.
Folks who bemoan the loss of what they have known but also at the same time refuse to allow more space for population growth are causing the very problems that they complain about.
I'm on a different coast, but have lost so many friends that don't have high powered careers, and it stings really hard. But it's not the fault of people moving into my town. It's 100% the fault of the people who are unwelcoming and falsely believe that if they preserve physical structures it will somehow help the people with less economic power.
No!
> or of the people that have lived there a long time and have set the political agenda?
Hardly less so!
Why we don't build more is a complex issue with failures on all levels of government, and it's certainly not something New Yorkers specifically asked for.
Rich NIMBYs complaining are damn hypocrites and the worse sure, but the type of New York Eric Adams (fuck him, to be clear) was ostencibly trying to appeal has no power over this stuff. Remember NYC is still a 1-party state shit show with way to many "veto points". It's structurally quite hard to do anything.
I think the best way out is mix-rate public housing. Public housing that looses money because it's only the poorest is stupid and doomed to fail. Mix rate so it can pay for itself but no "extractive" profit is much more sustainable, i.e. can survive right-wing state and federal governments. I don't know anywhere that has enough housing in good dense locations with just the private sector.
It's less the "vanishing New York" than the "vanishing self". Lifelong New Yorker weighing in here but the story most people don't get is from the people who've been here _too long_. People that are defeated.
My experience and my experience with most of the folks who've stuck around too long is that the city drives you just a little bit crazy. Even if you're successful in your career here, there is some way that the city has beaten you down (likely w/ family). Most people don't have generations of their family here and those that do often don't share the big ambitions of all of their transplant peers who flock to the city in droves and dominate its population.
Every New Yorker eventually has a time to leave. Most of us talk about how we hope we don't die here.
I was born in Oak Park and grew up in the Chi burbs, we just moved back to Lake View East.
We are both going through a very real, raw and emotional withdrawal from NYC, especially after living through COVID there. Like you said, after you live in NYC for a good number of years you realized you survived living in one of the most dynamic and chaotic environments on Earth; finally becoming a New Yorker in the process.
Leaving NYC to literally anywhere else on the planet after that adaptation leaves a large emptiness and sorrow that can only be equated to a death. However, the worst (and also best) part is that NYC still exists and people continue to make the City thrive. With a normal death, the person dies and there is closure. When you leave NYC, a piece of you dies but the City lives on in a taunting fashion, always trying to lure you back.
I believe we'll move back to NYC some time in the future and fill that emptiness but until that time comes, we'll revel in the things Chi provides that NYC does not: the Lake/Lake Shore trail/Lincoln Park, Wrigley(ville) and Midwestern hospitality.
Maybe it’s just everyone brushing off the past year of isolation, but some of that young magic felt more palpable than I had felt right before the pandemic hit. I’m happy the younger kids are out doing their thing again.
RIP Eisenberg's, Autumn Bowl skate sessions, circa 07 hidden Williamsburg warehouse waterfront skyline viewing spot, the old Chinatown Fair, and countless others.
Eventually gave up on that and moved to Silicon Valley. So much cheaper here and mostly forgot about Manhattan. Visited again for the first time just before the pandemic for a conference and suddenly realized how much I missed it. But the compromises are too brutal. Endless threads here about the cost of living in SV but at least renting a house with FANG salary is possible. Comparable living in Manhattan is impossible unless you're Bezos. If I ever win 100M++ in a powerball I'll move to Manhattan, but that will never happen.
Consider: Yankee Stadium holds around 50,000 people. The Yankees play maybe 30 games a year there. With 8M people in New York even if every person in the stadium were different every game, some 5 or 6 years would elapse for a person to be in the stadium twice.
Of course that doesn't happen. Of course many people fill the same seat game after game. Which mean the average New Yorker doesn't ever go into Yankee Stadium at all.
Madison Square Garden is worse - less than 20,000 seats. And every other theatre, restaurant, gas station is far far worse. Essentially for every 'landmark' you can name, the vast majority of New Yorkers never visit in a lifetime.
These waxing-eloquent love poems about 'everybody is a New Yorker' are pretty thin and clueless. Sure the wealthy may have a similar situation and experience, along with all their wealthy friends. But the rank and file of New York likely do their shift in the corner bodega, buy fast food on the way home and fall asleep in a ninth-story room looking on an alley. Rinse and repeat for 20 years.
So I guess from those back-of--the-envelope statistics there may be a common New York experience. But it isn't what these poems go on about.
The Yankees could play 90 games at Yankee stadium, but that would require them to be good.
I was once offered the chance to move to NYC (I live in Europe), I finally said no but one of the reasons for me to have said "yes" was the fact that the Mets were based in New York and I would have loved to go to their matches (one of those late Tuesday matches in July - early August where you can find $20 tickets up in the sky because by that time of the season the play-off chances are already gone). I only wanted to say that the Yankees are not the only baseball team in town, quite the contrary :)
50,000 * 30 games = 1.5M people per year. Let's say regulars/repeats/tourists are 3/4 of the people - 300K new local visitors.
A lifetime is (say) ~80 years.
In a lifetime, (7.7/8)^80 = 4.6% chance you don't go to YS at least once in your lifetime.
If I had to guess, MSG is better than YS because it hosts a wider variety of events and it's in the center of town with easy transit access, i.e. more new local visitors per year. The better analogy might be a venue like Forest Hills, which is far from the city.
Take Grand Central Station - certainly, most NYers visit once in their lives...
An upstate professor I knew 20 years ago called it the New York City hype machine.
“Love poems” is a great way of characterizing them. And love poems to a place have a great value…they create a sort of emotional architecture that operates at a different, but no less real, level than the physical and improves the emotional life for those thriving/living/stuck in those places. You don’t want to be “that guy” making the slog worse for those living there by denting their ideal that already has obvious condition issues.
The problem is the “Jerusalem syndrome” that arises when newcomers, newcomers on which NYC depends like vampires depend on blood, compare their reality to the poems. Sadly, although we dream in poetry, we live in prose.
After they passed a girl waiting to cross the street looked at me and said: “I was born and raised in Brooklyn, and the sirens, they’re music to my ears!”
Another time the metro wasn’t running and we needed to take the free shuttle bus instead. We sat near a large woman next to a small boy and listened.
> Whatchyou talkin’ ‘bout the end o’ the world’? It be just a storm, not the end o’ the world! Who been givin’ you ideas ‘bout the a-po-ca-lypse anyway?! You wake up in the morning (snap) — happy. You go outside for a walk (snap) — happy. That’s how it’s done, son! There be no time for bein’ pessi-mistic! Look at me! I still have some years in me and I don’t have time fo’ dis shit! (loud joyous laughter)
When the pandemic hit, the silence was... scary.
i would add Hong Kong. so many cultures, absolutely amazing. unfortunately it seems like things are changing for the worst lately…
And it's to an extent true, but most nationalities will have only 1-10 people. There's a few major ethnic groups like Moroccans and Turks comprising of much of the 'diversity', and I feel most groups live very segregated from each other. New-west is very Moroccan/Turkish, Bijlmer is very black, Zuid/Centrum is very white. Social groups don't really mix that much, honestly it's pretty embarrassing for a country with such a progressive an open-minded reputation, and for a city with an international reputation. There's a few mixed areas but by and large I don't feel a very multicultural vibe, it's much more segregated in my experience, particularly among the local population. In high-income expat circles you'll definitely find people from all over the world though.
Besides that I feel Dutch think in labels quite often and Amsterdam is a bit of a village, it's hard to be truly anonymous here. I run into people I know all the time. I miss the anonymity of being in a truly big city like New York or Shanghai, and generally I miss living abroad and being able to make-up a new identity for yourself.
Looks like NYC is 40% foreign-born, so your point stands as in they are both similarly multi-cultural.
(iirc Brampton – a Toronto suburb – has passed the 50% mark.)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/census-visible-minori...
I couldn’t find the original article, but the following describes half a dozen similar instances.
It's all a bit silly. But also interesting and slightly respectable because it's silly.
Personally I really don't want to move back there for work once the pandemic is officially over. I do like to go back about once a month or two and get a little taste.
A friend who recently moved out of NYC after decades just told me the city is becoming “like Dubai.” This article’s comparison of new buildings to the Empire State Bldg and WTC, which suggests lack of shared iconography, are I think what he meant.
I haven’t been to NYC for >8 years now, wondering if others agree with his assessment? Is it just that the new skyline is new and over time will become part of the New York iconography? Or is there something else keeping them from being loved by New Yorkers?
They are not individually beautiful buildings, but the improbably narrow slivers are a reminder that this is a city that will try anything.
It just seems like it was a beautiful place that a bunch of people wanted to move to. And now there's lots of money there.
The rest of California is exceptionally beautiful - the whole state is blessed with natural beauty. Combine that with great weather year around and solid economy, it's a great place to live. Here is Lake Tahoe which is my favorite place in CA: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/slideshow/Hidden-Lake-Tahoe-18...
This crime stats scare is nothing more than Eric Adams and his ilk trying the old Giuliani playbook.