london vs. NYC

London's better for dance clubs, New York's better for art. New York -- the New York I know, anyway -- is the art capital of Europe. I think New York tolerates eccentricity much better than London does (hence the improvement in social life experienced by Quentin Crisp and me when we moved here!). Rents are quite similar in both cities, though New York has the edge. Food and transport are both much cheaper in New York. London is ruined by its essential ugliness, its class system (original and inverted), its appalling transport problems, its expensiveness, its bad weather. The sun is shining on New York right now, and honestly it seems to me that it shines here every day. My one regret is that I didn't leave London earlier. I was miserable through most of my 20s.

I love London: I've lived in Hackney for very nearly 20 years, and I wouldn't dream of being anywhere else. It's expensive, shabby, annoying — transport is unbelievably terrible — and also endlessly mysterious and fascinating and subtle, a vast sprawl of peculiar little villages right next to one another. Some of the mystery comes from being old, obviously — there are streets which have had the same lie for 2000 years and the same name for 1500, there are weird beautiful old buildings, or just bits of buildings (always look up: the three golden women diving off the roof where the Haymarket meets Piccadilly Circus, Windmill street and Coventry Street; where Pentonville Road comes up to Angel, there's a building with a great yellow-red dusty looking cupola, with strange bushes growing out of it that no one can reach — it looks like something off an SF pulp paperback from the 70s). Food is good I think: not New York good, and yeah, pricey, but the transformation since I first lived here is vast (helps that I live in the Vietnam district, of course). Look carefully and it constantly astonishes you: as do the ppl in it. I have to agree w.Momus that it's a pretty terrible place to be a professional musician (the live venues in particular are irredeemable). I don't think it's supermodel super-contemporary international cosmopolitan at all: that was always a Carnaby Street myth. What it is is a very very very ancient city which every culture in the world can arrive in (has arrived in), and find itself jeek by intimate jowl with unexpected and yes often unexotic but abiding and challenging fragments of every other culture's deep past.

If you move to NYC, you get to hang out with me, what the hell else do you want????

Oooer, I'm going to meet Ally tomorrow at noon!

Momus I forgot to tell you that a bright light of New York has been dimmed: walking on my way to brunch I passed the old Music Palace on Bowery and Hester and it has closed. I think it was the last Chinese movie theater in New York. It made me extremely sad. New York needs to cultivate and sustain these kinds of places or we may lose the benefit or our mega-ethno-newness.

eek, move to NY so that I can come sleep on your floor. I think that since I know you Geeta, you will find that London is a lot less friendly than NY. I think it's hard to make new friends in London - I mean if you move here, than you'd already know me, but if you move to NY, you know a ton of people there, and you can still visit Boston.

London is more expensive than NY - and I think it takes longer to commute around the city to the different bits. I never noticed commutes in NYC taking 50 min as they do here - plus the subway in NY never closes, and honestly geeta, you don't wanna be taking night busses around London if you can help it.

If you are getting a real job, then get in in NY - you'll make more money. If you are living on a low wage or on savings then do it in NY cause it'll stretch longer - plus if you run out of $$ it's easier to go to the parents for a loan - and if you have american student loans to pay, it's a bit of a hassle and a rip off to transfer money to the US.

So, to sum up, London is a lot of fun if you have the Time and $$ to enjoy it! If you have a bunch of $$ saved up, come to London for 1-2 months and spend it having fun! If you don't have $$ and time, then wait until you do and come over then.

yeah, i guess i should've clarified the initial statement. in either place, it's for graduate school. i'm leaving the working world to head back in for a PhD. so in either place i'd be a student - not exactly living it large. i've already been accepted to schools in london - so it's an option - but i'm still waiting on hearing from the schools over here. the more i think about it, though, the more i want to live in new york.

marianna, how are things going across the river? write to me.

Tracer, it was good to meet you and I was just kidding about you looking like MC Paul Barman, you'd have to be several inches shorter to look exactly like him!

The Chinese Music Hall cinema on Bowery and Hester has been closed for about a year now. I was devastated, it was my local cinema and I went and sat on the wooden seats often, watching stuff as retro-kitschy as old 60s Chinese porn films and as edgy as sub-Wong Kar Wai dramas about Hong Kong teen pregnancy. People would talk loudly on cell phones through the films, and the men's urinal was totally visible to the whole auditorium, just to the left of the screen. They don't make cinemas like that any more...

I'm claiming Momus as my new best friend. Tracer turned down my Mexican fiesta for Motherfucker so he is no longer my best friend, despite his valiant search for Tuxedo Mask at Elizabeth Center.

Its London for me I'm afraid - but as it stands this is based on not knowing New York (something which I hope to change this year, albeit briefly). Much of what Mark S said above holds for me too, plus its ever changing nature. Places are not what they were when I was a kid, areas change - part of being old is that it is all under constant renewal. London certainly isn't ugly, it has the beauty of contrast. For me the commute is part of the town, its my reading time, its my looking at buildings time (I miss the Mammoth on the Caledonian Road). London endures - and its a great place to study.

Well, to rent a room in a reasonably nice place will cost you £400 per month, to rent a whole apartment is £150/week if you are very lucky and/or you want to live on the outskirts. If you want to live in the centre rents are £200/week for a 1 bed flat. This is a little bit cheaper than NYC. Your other bills (utilities/phone) will be more expensive than in NYC but when you go out you don't generally tip bartenders the way Americans do and waiters in 'normal' restaurants expect a 10 per cent tip. Which is good, because restaurants are a little more expensive here. However, chocolate and nice shoes are cheaper in London.

But if you're going to one of these places for grad school your main consideration should be the course, how good it is, and whether or not those brilliant lecturers they've lined up for you are really there for more than two hours a week for one term.

Trust a current flatsearcher. Only move if you are rich. Hmph. It seems to be hard to find places which work out to under £100 a week each for three of us - which is VERY POOR! Does anyone know any decent estate agents who won't laugh us out of house and home (literally) for a budget of about £270pw for a three bedroom flat (and even THEN thats pushing us).

I think I am going to cry.

Oh actually here is an estate agent who seem to have places we can afford! I bet they are all dead dodgy though. Then again I wonder if you CAN get dodgier compared to our current gaff.

London is bettah cos everything is wibbly and not in straight lines - something which felt extremely strange when I was in the NYC neck of the woods.

Does anyone know any decent estate agents who won't laugh us out of house and home (literally) for a budget of about £270pw for a three bedroom flat (and even THEN thats pushing us).

Really, Starry? Our old 3BR place in Greenwich wasn't anything like that much - 2min from Maze Hill rail, 10min walk from DLR, 5min bus ride from tube. Or has everything gone mental since '99?

It seems pretty mentalist, Mike. A few places seem okay now, with quite deep digging. Your old flat was absolutely lovely I must say - and so is your current gaff! Oh whilst you might be about, I apologise for missing Stylus on Saturday. It slipped my mind and by the time I remembered it was too late and I was drunk on port like a... moron, actually. Can you remember where you went through when you found your Brixton place? Actually, I will mail you off board abt this tomorrow if that's okay. Mail here = arsed again today.

I'm claiming Momus as my new best friend.

The seating arrangement didn't allow us to talk much, Ally. But there's more to life than words. Did you notice that unspeakably unspoken moment when our eyes met -- all three of them?

And you all scoffed when I predicted wuv.

TARTS!

TARRED! ARR ME HEARTIES!

Geeta, I'm facing the same decision about moving to London. Well, really, I'm already going: in April. As I haven't lived there for long periods since I was a kid, I'm partly excited...and terrified. Tis damn expensive to live there, as already been said.(Tis only do-able,if you have family to descend on.) If you are going as a student, you have more options. Will you be in student housing---or don't you know?

Nichole

The seating arrangement didn't allow us to talk much, Ally. But there's more to life than words. Did you notice that unspeakably unspoken moment when our eyes met -- all three of them?

I did, yes, and I will treasure it forever in my mind, as unfortunately I forgot my camera at home to capture the moment. Speaking of which, didn't you have a camera on you? If the picture of me is bad, don't show it to anyone.

Ally, trust me, if the picture is bad he will show it to EVERYONE!