ILE London NYC swap.

I'd probably live in Big Ben.

New York is the only other city I can imagine living in. Given that I had more people make passes at me in my first two week visit to the US than in all but one year in England, I imagine my love life might be livelier. It is nice to imagine going to FAPs and seeing the wonderful NY people (I speculate there, having only met the wonderful Mark & Felicity, but I'm sure I'm right), but I would miss seeing the wonderful London people.

The cities strike me as pretty similar, in energy level and opportunity and the number of things to do and places to go and all sorts of other ways. I've not experienced anywhere else as much like London. I expect I would have much the same kind of life. I don't imagine I would ever move in fact, because I have a whole bunch of friends here who I've know for over 20 years, and I can't imagine being so far from them.

This visit to London was incredibly comfortable and familiar-seeming, thanks to all you good, good people. As I said to Mary at one point, it all felt so similar to our lives in New York that while we were lounging around gareth's it seemed like we were just hanging out in an apartment in Brooklyn. We had endless delight trying to map all the areas of London on to the corresponding neighborhoods in New York and refining the distinctions between our respective versions of the English languange.

I don't know where I'd live at this point. . . . maybe somewhere away from King's Cross or whereever they're making the new stadium. Trying to get a bus away from the Arsenal match letting out was like trying to get on the last copter out of Saigon.

Never been to East Asia. I love Chicago and consider its lack of worldly pretensions (I'm looking at YOU, San Francisco) a major part of its charm. LA is good in other ways.

What are the New York/London equivalent neighborhoods?

I'd live in New Jersey and tell people I saw Jon Bon Jovi in the supermarket.

Shanghai and Tokyo are snoooozeworthy compared to NY...

People may disagree, but some equivalencies from someone who's lived both places:

Brick Lane, Shoreditch, Hoxton = every neighbourhood south of Houston.

Clerkenwell = weird Chelsea/Meatpacking/Tribeca hybrid w/bits of Wall Street.

Dalston and Hackney = Williamsburg by 2005.

Shacklewell/Stoke Newington/Stamford Hill = Williamsburg with less galleries

Whitechapel/Stepney/Bethnal Green = Greenpoint, LIC, DUMBO, all new NYC art areas.

Camden/Islington/Bloomsbury/Covent Garden/Soho = Villages West/East, some of SoHo.

Primrose Hill = Brooklyn Heights and nearby.

Brixton/Camberwell/Peckham = Harlem

Oval/Kennington/Vauxhall = Carroll Gardens, other Heights in Bklyn.

Acton/Shepherd's Bush/Ealing = Alphabet City all the way to the river plus strange bits of West Village at random, but with more parks and large houses like you get in nouveau parts of Queens.

Chiswick = another Park Slope

Holloway/Highbury/Archway/Finsbury Park/Stoke Newington = Park Slope and surrounding.

Wood Green/Turnpike Lane/Crouch End = Astoria

St. John's Wood/Maida Vale/Swiss Cottage/Hampstead = West Side but BY PARK.

Victoria/Belgravia/Chelsea/Kensington = East Side but BY PARK.

Notting Hill = Chelsea, Sutton Place, SoHo or Upper East Side, depending.

Edgware Road/West Hampstead/Kilburn/Willesden/Harlesden = West Side all the way from (cough) Clinton to Cloisters.

South London = Brooklyn and gentrified Bronx.

West Kensington/Earl's Court/Hammersmith = East Side from 14th to 96th

Southwest London (Putney/Battersea/Wandsworth/Richmond etc.) = Westchester (most likely to see SUV plus Mom).

Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I think.

I'd like to live in NYC, but I don't think I could manage more than a year or so outside of London because of all the friends and family I have round here. But on the other hand, my accent will be considered sexy over there and I will be considered HOT TOTTY.

i thought shoreditch=williamsburg

What about Staten Island? eh. I'm guessing something like croydon, except that I guess that Staten Island doesn't get used as a stand in for newyork in films (as croydon council film board like to point out, which films I don't know)

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read.

I'm intrigued by the suggestion that parts of London's Soho are the equivalent of New York's Soho (or vice versa). Conceptual overlap! Is there anywhere where London Chelsea is similar to New York Chelsea?

***DISCLAIMER***

My rationales for areas equalling their NYC counterparts are based on a lot of factors, such as which ethnic groups have adopted the area, who else lives there, architecture, number of bourgeois settlers, all sorts of things. That's why a bit of Chiswick can be like the leafier bits of Park Slope and the scuzzoid bits of Finsbury Park kind of mimic the less salubrious bits of the same area (apart from the strange clothing-wholesaler bit which is like Orchard Street c. 1990). Capische, Gareth?

Some others:

Southall = Jackson Heights

I don't think Shoreditch is that much like Williamsburg. IT IS IN ZONE ONE AND BRIDGES OR TUNNELS DON'T FEATURE (that club called b&t nonwithstanding). You have to go to Zone Two for that vibe, which I find at galleries like Cell which are north of Dalston Junction.

I guess I have that pre-Giuliani thinking about NYC which means although the outer boroughs are quite pleasant and contain interesting areas, first I'll take Manhattan.

It was the obvious slumming money in Williamsburg which led me to draw the comparison, really.

Tim, Z2 starts at the canal! Shoreditch Park is in Z1! W/burg equivalent galleries are Cell, Nylon, Anthony Wilkinson, that Cambridge Heath Road kinda vibe which is pretty distinct from Actual Shoreditch. Also Actual Shoreditch galleries have more expensive/established artists.

Williamsburg also = the 0208 part of Ladbroke Grove and Kensal Rise, still the TRUE first stop for trustas in London.

Just curious, what gives you that idea? (Besides the fact that I live on its margins, of course.)

The London Chelsea around Sloane Square and towards the Fulham Road is reminiscent of the 70s/80/90s Park Avenue part of the Upper East Side in that there are lots of little French girls going to school in their adorable boater hats, and people walking around in wellies, oiled Barbour jackets, Hermes scarves and carrying Kelly bags. I found many of these to be Americans. Some of them are actual English people who are really like that in all seriousness and they seem very pleasant but also as if they might shoot you if you trespassed on their estates in the country. So, kind of like the Upper East Side, but these people might pretend it was an accident. But I am very loud and rude. London Chelsea becomes more like NoLiTa (literally, "North of Little Italy," east of SoHo in New York) as you go down King's Road away from Sloane Square in that there are lots of trendy shops which seem to have a high turnover rate but there you get a sense somehow that it once was a swinging neighborhood. That's the part I lived in, Zone 2, past Chelsea Town Hall.

New York Chelsea, in addition to having many art galleries, is a very gay neighborhood, but the nesting rather than the cruising kind. There have been complaints that it is losing its gay character due to gentrification throughout Manhattan in general. I still find it very similar to West Hollywood. Over the past few years, New York Chelsea has become a destination for a certain kind of nightlife, perhaps like the Soho/Trafalgar Square areas in London. In addition, the Chelsea Piers have given New York Chelsea the feeling of a sporty neighborhood, in the daytime. You see folks riding the M23 with hockey gear or with soccer balls heading for the Chelsea Piers.

I like 'em but I'm sure neither can hold a candle to the Boston Chelsea.

Anyway suzy's list here is invaluable, thank you suzy.

(Ealing Broadway)

Apparently it's just you Ed, because I've walked up and down the Getty driveway. (I'm assuming you're talking about the new Getty and not the Malibu Getty.

I thought that Stoke Newington seemed a bit Park Slopey, but possibly a bit less obnoxiously so. I also thought that Hampstead seemed Park Slopey, with perhaps a bit of Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill thrown in.

I didn't find an Astoria. Is this still valid?

Wood Green/Turnpike Lane/Crouch End = Astoria

I think Camden maps to the East Village--both hanging on to the fading glory of previous alternity.

I'd say Wood Green/Turnpike Lane were valid, yeah, going on what I know about Astoria. Not so sure about Crouch End.

The Lower East Side reminded me more of Shoreditch than Williamsburg did, although I accept six years is a long time when talking about these things.

Broadway Market is Williamsburg ca. 2000, what with the low heights of the buildings, the proliferation of bars, the weekend influx of fashionistas, the bemused working class locals - but not yet the total annihilation via recent college graduates

I always sorta thought Hampstead was the Upper West Side

Tracer, go look at this NOW: it has a garden, yo.

yeah i saw that one! i don't know - with all these things i veer back and forth between "hmm, could do" and "maybe i'll wait another five years"

That's approximately 100 yards from the Lido BTW. In your shoes, I'd walk over and have a look.

I thought that Stoke Newington seemed a bit Park Slopey, but possibly a bit less obnoxiously so. I also thought that Hampstead seemed Park Slopey, with perhaps a bit of Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill thrown in.

well at least one of those goes on the list for next time, then

But the Astoria got knocked down!