'Death of a Once Great City': is New York City Really This Bad?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Sure, some. And a lot of the buildings being knocked down are, in fact, dilapidated piles of shit.

But in the case of New York, the iconic art-deco skyscrapers of days of yore like the Woolworth Building, Chrysler Building and Empire State Building are being overshadowed by monolithic glass boxes. This is particularly egregious in more residential neighborhoods like Astor Place and other locations where architecturally interesting buildings are being replaced by pencil-thin “supertall” residential towers that cater to people able to afford $20 million condos.

62

This.

I get the impression that some posters have “from afar” observations, judgements based on a few days doing the tourist circuit, or have just seen a lot of TV and movies set in NYC.

63

Does anyone watch Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix? I find it kind of amusing how the “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” has to content with The Kingpin’s evil plan of gentrification. Also how his Hells Kitchen seems to take up half of Manhattan.

You know, you don’t have to live in Times Square. There are plenty of nice little neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens full of houses.

Back then, one did not travel into certain Manhattan neighborhoods without a switchblade and 5 years Jazz/tap training.

64

My wife and I left New York a few months after our older so was born. The cost of living was just too high. We couldn’t afford to buy our house in the DC suburbs now, but we bought in 1999. At the time we moved we were able to live as well or better on one income, and we didn’t have the headache of being managers anymore.

I can still enjoy visiting New York, but it’s strange to walk down 3rd avenue and see a Subway and Starbucks every 3 blocks. I actually find that DC has a bigger beer variety than NY. My wife and I aren’t motivated to visit as often.

65

Convenience is a powerful thing; it’s probably a lot easier for most New Yorkers to go into their local supermarket and buy Hillshire Farm or Oscar Mayer lunch meat than to go to one of the remaining authentic delis and get the real thing.

But I think the author of the article seems to have a hard-on for hating on rich people, and an extreme dislike of change. He’s probably one of those sorts who thinks NYC hit its peak in 1935 and has gone downhill ever since.

There also seems to be a larger national trend of people with money coming IN to the city, rather than moving farther and farther out. Even in cities that never really had much in the way of “urban” living are now seeing a pretty noticeable trend of people wanting to live downtown, with all the cost, etc… associated with it. I’m not sure if it’s an environmental thing, a gasoline price thing, or some sort of momentary fad though.

66

I do miss when the coffee houses were still independent and varied and not overwhelmingly Starbucks & Dunkin Donuts. But, so it goes.

I love the fact that just about every street in Manhattan (at least from the Park south) still have a great Irish Tavern. Plenty of affordable Delis, Bagel places and Diners to go along with the upscale places and chains that have moved in.

67

y’know, if it was so inherently awesome and perfect, it wouldn’t need an army of people going around and getting in people’s faces to constantly remind them how awesome it is.

68

The late Anthony Bourdain once wrote an essay bemoaning the Disneyfication of Times Square and the demise of its colorful culture of pimps, drugs and porn theaters. Later( possibly after he had a kid )he looked back at that essay and realized what bullshit it was. That there was nothing all that glamorous about crime, filth and despair.

69

“It’s too bad Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have pushed out all the dirty, overpriced bodegas.”

-No one ever

Yes, the article does sound like some sort of neurotic Woody Allen-esq character bemoaning how the city no longer caters to failed artists and winos.

I think what you have is a combination of people moving into cities because they like the lifestyle and convenience. But you also have a displacement of small neighborhood stores, bars and restaurants by chains and “celebrity chef” venues. So what happens is that the neighbor becomes less of a real neighborhood where the people who own and work in the stores and shops also live in the community. So the people who live in the neighborhood are more affluent types who maybe work on Wall Street or some other high paying job. The people who work in the neighborhood are mostly service workers who travel in from somewhere else. So it tends to give the whole neighborhood a bit of a “Disney resort” feel. IOW, every is either a wealthy resident or a service worker employed to take care of their needs.

70

Daredevil was created in 1964, and from the beginning was strongly associated with Hell’s Kitchen. Back then it was a run-down working class slum run by the Irish mafia. Plus, it’s called Hell’s Kitchen, that’s bad ass. That run down working class slum no longer exists, and Hell’s Kitchen today is just another upscale Manhattan neighborhood.

But in the fictional world of the Daredevil TV show, Hell’s Kitchen is still a slum filled with abandoned warehouses and gangsters and homeless guys warming their hands over trash barrel fires. Pro tip homeless guys, next time go for the full-fingered gloves instead of the fingerless gloves if you wanna stay warm. I guess New York is kind of a mess after half of Manhattan was smashed by giant space whales back in 2012.

71

You’re probably right; and I suspect it comes down more to whether or not there are mixed-income neighborhoods anymore, or if that’s a thing of the past. In many parts of DFW, areas and sometimes entire cities essentially import their low-wage workforce from other parts of town.

72

guys (especially guys) seem to form a strong attachment to the way things were when they were in their teens and 20s.

73

I have lived / studied/ worked in NYC since the summer of 1981. While I quickly identify as a Philadelphian, I’ve got quite a fondness for this city.

Oh, where to start. The Gentrification issue. It isn’t just pockets of Manhattan that are being razed and replaced with soulless sealed-windows smooth glass and steel monoliths, devoid of style, appeal or warmth. I’m in Astoria and it’s happening. In fact, it’s happening in Long Island City right next door in a rampant and aggressive manner, only in the last 8 years or so. Terrifying.

The process of making generations of people whose presence has defined the look, tastes, smells, culture, local craft and sounds of a neighborhood feel not only displaced but absolutely and undeniably out of place and unwelcome is a process that has- to my eyes- rapidly increased in cruelty and coarseness since Trump was campaigning. Plain and simple. Astoria used to be primarily Italian, then Greek and Italian, then Hispanic and Greek and Italian. Now? It’s this marvelous mélange of everyone and everything. Muslims from many nations, Easter Europeans, Russians, Greek, Hispanic, Italian, Irish, everyone everything. It’s freaking great. But as all of these average-income working people have their 3- and 4-story apartment buildings sold out from under them to make room for the aforementioned soulless husks, the neighborhood will literally dis-integrate. Funny, what that word really means.

Museums? Shopping? Sure. NYC’s got a large variety of museums. It’s an older city that’s always had a big slice of stunningly wealthy people. Hence, museums great and small. Shopping? Well, yeah, but not as it’s been. Gone is almost all of the Flower District. Gone are many of the amazing second-hand and more craft-oriented stores that were selling goods at accessible prices. Yes, in SoHo and the Lower East Side ( which has gone from Needle Park to Don’t Fucking Park Near My $ 2,800 Stroller ! ), craft shops can still be found. But almost nobody can afford what’s for sale in them.

Gone is Canal Jeans, Pearl Paint, etc etc. Gone are very vibrant neighborhoods. Not entirely gone, but a lot of the individuality and distinct qualities are being driven under. On my avenue, an old Italian bakery closed last year. The sign read, " We thank our neighbors and friends for the support and business of the last 70 years. "

Those signs are the rule not the exception as much in the outer boroughs as in Manhattan.

I mourn the loss of many favorite spots- and would mourn them MUCH less if now and then they were replaced by OTHER interesting local spots that didn’t appeal to me, but appealed to someone.

This city is actively engaged in becoming both inaccessible and benign.

:frowning:

74

But it’s not like all the cities except New York are keeping their quirky neighborhoods and ethnic districts and character. Every city is undergoing the same thing, except for cities that are economically imploding.

The alternative to economic growth isn’t preservation, it’s decline. The vibrant Times Square with “character” in the 1970s wasn’t that way because Times Square was doing great. Times Square was disintegrating because it didn’t work anymore. OK, so now we have the disneyfied Times Square without the pimps and the CHUDs. You want the pimps and the CHUDs back?

Immigrants and working class people need inexpensive housing. Places where everyone wants to live means prices get bid up, which means the rich get to live in the places the rich wanna live, and the poors have to live where people don’t want to live, because that’s the way it works.

75

I’ve been here since 1989 and there isn’t anything in the article that hasn’t been written about a bazillion times before. I guess I don’t mourn days gone by as much as I just move on. It’s still New York, after all, with it’s intractable problems and churn of people from all over the world who manage to make it work and not kill each other (for the most part).

What’s new besides the blight of empty storefronts in otherwise ok neighborhoods? I live in Yorkville and for whatever reason practically every block on the avenues now has a ‘smoke’ shop with vaping stuff and the usual head shop crap nicely displayed in the window. Now there’s a step up in living standards. Also, the 2nd Ave subway is a huge improvement despite the aesthetics of the stations. I care more about the escalator possibly crapping out more than I do about who got immortalized in tile.

Since I have two 15 year old daughters going to different schools and otherwise traveling around the city, I like the 2010s NYC.

Yes a lot of my favorite places from my past are gone - for instance the legendary 48th street music stores are now empty lots. But I don’t miss the paltry hours and the stores not being open on Sundays (some stupid agreement they all seemed to have). Some of the stores relocated and Guitar Center has infiltrated for good or ill and there are still hole in the wall places. So, while it’s sad that an iconic place like Manny’s is gone, they really seemed to make zero effort to adapt to the changing landscape.

Yes I miss browsing in Tower Records, HMV, and the used places. Those are never coming back. I also miss some favorite book stores. On the other hand I quite like YouTube, Spotify, and Shazam for finding new music.

One of my daughters goes to school near Times Square so if I find myself with some time to kill I’ll go to the pedestrian plaza, have a seat in one of those little red chairs and watch tourists, maybe take some pictures, enjoy what’s generally an improvement IMO.

You can’t just take the forces that pulled the city out it’s funk and tell them ok, thanks, please stop now.

76

Nostalgia is a disease.

77

Maybe so, but at least it’s a real disease - not like these trendy impersonal diseases making the rounds lately. Kids growing up in this kind of glassed-in environment have never had a disease like that - hell, they’ve never even SEEN a real disease. I once caught a disease that Joe DiMaggio had had the day before. Now that was an experience, let me tell you.

…

:wink:

78

reminds me of an image macro I saw somewhere a while back. picture was of the storefront of a small shop, and on the door hung a sign “Support Small Businesses!” the caption was “OPEN 11 AM - 3PM, THREE DAYS A WEEK.”

79

I basically agree with that.

I’d add, I was born in NY in the late 50’s and have lived in or near almost all my life (near for the last 30 yrs in a place that’s a lot less distinguishable from just another City neighborhood than it used to be, which itself an issue to long term resident here, how Manhattan-ified it’s become here, even as others argue NY has become less distinct itself). That doesn’t make my observations ‘right’ but people who formed opinions based on how cool and bohemian things (supposedly) were when NY was kind of a shit hole, honestly and they were also young adults new to the city…I don’t weigh those opinions so heavily. The City is a so much more livable place now I can’t countenance arguments that seem to entirely ignore that aspect

The other thing which tends to get ignored is how much of NY’s rental space is public or Rent Stabilized. I remember it covered in a previous thread, but outsiders or people like the article author will often often if you ask them believe a narrative where public/RS is being rapidly pushed out by new free market. The stats say that just isn’t so. The decline in RS units has been very small on avg compared to the stock. Some years recently it’s been a small increase. The great majority of those people aren’t moving, and most of those who do aren’t being ‘forced’ (it’s not ‘forced’ to accept $50k from the landlord to give up an RS apt, which would probably lead to ‘but landlords harass people out’, which is not generally true, the City is totally on the side of tenants in landlord/tenant disputes, sometimes to a counterproductive degree).

A city which is a modern global financial capital and open to low skilled immigrants is going to have high income inequality. There’s no way around that but to either discourage or undermine the city’s place as a financial center or discourage or exclude those immigrants. Same for other high value added industry/professions (NY is now a not insignificant start up center, besides its other traditional strengths like publishing and media). The only way to truly homogenize on a sub national basis is not have the rich people and wealth/income/tax revenue they generate. Some other US cities kind of look like that and it’s not a good picture. London is somewhat similar to NY in that respect.

And otherwise I also agree. Dunkin or Starbucks v one location local coffee place is a world phenomenon, not a NY one or even just a US one. And NY still has a higher density of ‘real’ eateries (sticking to that) than most US cities, I question if the gap has even closed there. Types of unusual stores that there used to be a few of citywide but now none, that is sad. But often there never were any in other US cities.

80

Wifey sold her Yorkville apartment in '14 to move in with me in NJ. We joked for a few years before we sold that we’d wait for the Second street line to open before putting her place on the market (we didn’t).

I really miss her place on 93rd.