is New York City dead?

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.

I used to drive in the city all the time. It's fine. It was parking that was the issue.

I miss DUMPLINGS! and pizza. And things not being closed on Sunday, Monday, half of Wed. or for whatever random holiday/break pops up.

driving from Queens to Manhattan is not terrible, although sometimes you wind up having to park in a garage that costs more than whatever you're actually going to the city for.

Agreed that the real issue with driving into the city is the parking. Ive gotten used to cruising the grid to find street parking; even if it's metered it's way better than paying a garage imo.

I commuted into the city every weekday for work from roughly March 2000-May 2016. Since May 2016, I've been into NYC maybe 20 times - roughly once a month, on average - and I don't miss it at all.

Uptown is really nice and feels weirdly timeless, both the east and west sides.

new york is obv dead bc we are now just talking about the subway

subway complaints otm though it really is awful

I’m planning to move to east williamsburg soon — with friends — but maybe that isn’t my scene.

tbh i've never lived in ny, just visited a ton over the 15 years i lived on the east coast. i love visiting. there is a manic creative energy there, i enjoy being around all different kinds of people, and last time i visited (a month ago) it really struck me how globally, ethnically, socioeconomically diverse it STILL is

claims of a rust belt migration are overblown, though i do meet a fair share of folks who moved back to cleveland like i did after spending time in more expensive cities. there is a cool art scene in cleveland, there is stuff happening. but come on as cool and livable as rust belt cities are (and i do genuinely love them) they are provincial compared to a place like new york

i've been in NYC for eighteen years now and got through 9/11 and sandy evicting me and the 2003 blackout and am now old and fat and running into people I haven't seen in a decade on the way to the dentist
i would likely be a great deal less patient with city life if i had to still be doing daily subway commuting but I've been freelance for about five years and while that comes with its own hassles, i recommend it.
i would say one of the three major reasons i wanted to come here was because i hate cars and car culture and this was one of the few places you could get by without wheels... in the uber economy, this may be less true now?
NYC has ridic good live music and theater and film and art and general performance and lectures every single night of the week and the food is great
you can do all the above for a lot of money or for free/nearly free with a fair amount of due diligence
the rent remains too damn high but i remain amazed that the melting pot is still melting: every ethnicity/gender/class/creed is slammed together and we mostly all get along cheek by jowl without fucking killing each other somehow and that's a small miracle
there are days when i hate everybody and everything here but they're rarer than the days when I'm utterly floored by what the city has to offer.
i <3 ny

also treeship comment about the internet is partially right to some extent those more clearly defined scenes are happening more online than geographically. everywhere has scenes though

Everything here is comically more stressful than any other place.

Try living in London, there's a real shithole for you.

they are provincial compared to a place like new york

you can get people to piss on you anywhere in america

xp That’s what i’m talking about ulysses. I need to rediscover some of that love — that Whitmanian view of new york. That’s what makes stuff like the stress of commuting bearable. It’s hard to feel that sometimes with all the grotesque and out of control wealth. And also I am just bitter now

"Try living in London, there's a real shithole for you."

Don't talk to me about sophistication, Ive lived in Woolwich.

The East River Ferry is sort of a life-changing alternative to subway commuting. You can spend an entire week without going underground ever. But yeah, to get back to the thread topic, RIP New York.

Memorial Day post - apocalyptic summer no one around vibe

*post-apocalypitc

children at the beach instead of the bars

I’d bet on Rockaway breaking an attendance record

CP is pretty chill

What

just caught a bit of a good Yiddish Dead cover band in Crown Heights

Went to the air line diner by lga with the fam, just trying to recapture some of that goodfellas magic. Had a blt. Famous neon sign offers beer and parking, will take them up on that next time

NY will never die and I would kill to go to a diner in queens rn. What did you get??

A mf’in BLT! They also had fresh squeezed navel orange juice in mason jars

lol mason jars

I am a vegetarian but I love BLTS and make veggie ones every couple months. Good choice.

Was trying to think of when I was last at LaGuardia. Think 2006 flying from there to Vegas for my dad's 60th.

After many many years of horror followed by massive renovations, LGA is actually a really nice airport finally.

Waiter looked like a deBarge cousin

The most goodfellas diner is the one where that zoom dolly shot was filmed and it’s in maspeth and I’d drive by it every weekend in my way from woodside to bushwick. They finally renamed it “goodfellas diner”. Then it burned down. It’s still there but boarded up.

Oh, and cash only. There’s an ATM by the restrooms

1) I heard that about LGA! I'm sure I'll be there again at some point

2) God, diners are just the best. I miss them a lot. What a fantastically weird phenomenon they are and I'm talking about the NY tri-state area mostly greek owned variety. There's nothing like it.

And it's hard to explain. There are a lot of old train car diners in NE which are also great and when I lived in Boston I made a pint to seek them out but still - totally different.

Diners vs coffee shops fite

I was trying to explain the difference to my wife and said something like diners are stand alone facilities and coffee shops are in buildings

Jesus I don't know how long it's been but I forgot so many of the people that are in this were in it!

Crazy goldfish roommate guy from friends!

Joey Lauren Adams.

Omg wrong thread. Whoops.

I buy that.

There are some sorta diners near me. There's a place called Pete's Grill that I've never been too despite living nearby. Alpha Donuts was a famous greasy spoon doughnut place though they stopped making their own donuts years before they moved. They had the curved counter seating with stools and everything. I regret to my very core not buying it and opening my own diner/donut shop.

Georgia Peach is a famous diner on Queens Blvd that I went to once and wasn't so impressed. Across the street was another called Pop Diner or Nevada Diner that Georgia moved into.

I'm from NJ so most NYC diners don't quite cut it.

The LGA adjacent Airline Diner, which is actually Jackson Hole now, is fun. Took my daughter on her 6th birthday for her first diner experience and pancakes for dinner and jukeboxes on every table and we put on Rockaway Beach by the Ramones. Food was ok.

There's some diners in Astoria that are pretty famous. Bel Aire and Neptune.

Kellogs Diner in williamsburg was the absolute worst, can't believe it lasted as long as it did. Drove by last night and it's been shuttered for a while.

I do have fond memories of places like Bendix Diner. There's a whole ILX thread for places like that:
Redd's Roster of Restaurants of the Old Weird New York

I used to love getting omelettes at diners after DJ gigs. When Odessa was 24 hours. Back in brooklyn there were 2 24 hour diners. One on the corner of Smith and Atlantic that was great and really expensive, and one on the corner of 3rd ave and atlantic which was terrible.

There's a chain (of 2) diners called Grand Canyon, one in Park Slope I think and one in Brooklyn Heights. used to love their burgers.

I had 4am french fries at Kellogg's so many times. Their burger was a microwaved puck of meat-flavored roughage. NJ diners are where it's at.

I would be so down for an ILX NYC diner meet. Although we would never agree on a venue.

I'd do it! Dan can pick imo.

https://i.imgur.com/8wGkOKq.jpeg

That place has been The Jackson Hole... what, at least 30 years? i'm surprised it was called something else.
There was a Jackson Hole on the upper west side too. I think 80-something and Columbus. Omnivore friends swore by it but the one time i ate there the grilled cheese was horrifying, with half frozen broccoli or something.

"diners are stand alone facilities and coffee shops are in buildings"

None of the "diners" in my area seem to be aware of this

"I'm from NJ"

wait whaaat

the same omnivore friends prefer Cherry Valley for their pre-departure meals, this is a club i will never be part of