And I must confess I’m sick and tired of hearing people say they live in the “greatest city of the world,” even if it’s meant in jest.
Yeah, I love NY to pieces. Yeah, I wish I had more trees on my street. Yeah, NY is a really great city, even if you don’t care for it. No, it’s not the greatest city in the world.
Yes, I might be over-reacting.
For me, it is definitely not New York itself that I hate…it IS the people, or most of them anyway. That is not to say that I was happy in any way when the awful events of Sept. 11th took place. I was as disgusted and saddened as I would have been had it happened anywhere in the world, much as I would expect even the biggest NY bashers to be. Having said all this…
I live in one of the world’s “great” cities. I like big cities, and I like living in them (not to say that I don’t enjoy open fields and fresh air, I just rarely pine for them). New York, itself, is a wonderful example of the advantages of a big city–as our DJ friend has pointed out, overall there is no better place to be in the States if you want to have a career in the Arts. My personal obsession is in collecting music, and the best used CD/record shops on the whole are found in New York (for the US again–London caters more to my tastes). But for every aspiring artist and nearly-bankrupt CD-aholic in the city, there are ten cocksucker I-bankers with a vocabulary ten words bigger than the sum of terms used in their firm’s annual report, or chest-puffing “tuffy tuffs” who believe that Darwin’s law (Darwin who?) of natural selection applies to human society and the ability to wield guns/knives/fists/small appliances and they are therefore the most highly evolved or J. Crew/Knicks jersey-wearing teenage wankers who aspire to someday be in one of the two previous categories. Most native New Yorkers have never been west of Pennsylvania yet they deride all those from the Midwest and West coast blindly. Because, I mean, all those people would be in New York if they could, right?! But the very worst type of New Yorker is the one who happens to find himself outside of the city–their combination of snobbery, naiveté and subjectiveness in their observations of their temporary surroundings is the very worst kind of advertisement for NY tourism possible. Not that I am generalising at all here…
Yes, this is a rant without purpose (or much noticeable structure), but it has been building up for years. And yes I rooted against the Yankees, not because I dislike the players or managers (I even used to play tennis with Paul O’Neill and would have liked to have seen him end his career on a better note, not to be all New Yorkey and name-drop on you here), but because I wanted the fans to suffer. The only teams from New York I don’t mind are the ones like the MetroStars, and that’s just because no one in NY cares about them anyway. Erg…that’s another tangent.
So, how can one separate the city from the people? As I’ve said, not ALL New Yorkers are bad (someone has to run the record shops), and the very fact that you have twelve million people in one area means that you will have the kind of niches of culture that couldn’t exist necessarily in Omaha. That’s why anyone whose ambition it is to live in New York isn’t necessarily an awful person by any means. The only thing is, once they move there, I’m probably going to hate them on principle alone.
Generalising never hurt nobody, did it?
Hmmm.
Do I sense the presence of a Midwestern boy? 
Whattevuh, Wrackett, whattevuh.
Yeah Maeglin, NYC is the tops and if the suckers can’t hack it, fuck em. It’s not like many whinging bastids complaints show much knowledge of NYC anyways. (oooh like walking, whoever thought of walking ten or twenty blocks.)
Heheh.
Yes, walking, so I can go to soho and have my wallet stolen right out of my hand in the middle of the day…
and ask for directions for those 20 blocks and get laughed at by Wall Street man.
Hey, its not our fault you were walking with your wallet out like a sucka. Same goes for the rubes with the wallet in the back pocket. I mean if you’re going to make it easy, then you just gonna have to suck it up and admit you were a sucka. Everyone knows you carry your wallet in a place not easily accessible and never flash cash.
Survival of the fittest. We’re trim, we’re fast and clever.
As for the Wall Street folks, I hate to say it, but they’re mostly transplants from the mid-West and elsewhere. What can we say.
This is so fucking true.
In my experience, most of the real asshole New York types are transplants who try to incorporate the New York stereotype a little too assiduously into their personalities. As if being in New York means you have to “act New York.” As for the Wall Street jocks, they only give you shit about directions because they probably couldn’t tell Tavern on the Green from Bowling Green six months ago.
Fuck 'em.
For every asshole there are a hundred thousand real New Yorkers who love the city and want everyone else to love it, too. We give great directions. We are never sparing in restaurant recommendations. Wanna know how to avoid the ripoffs and the tourist traps? Ask one of us any day.
Pucette, you make a good point. I don’t mean it in jest, just subjectively, I suppose. I live in the greatest city in the world for me. And yeah, I’ve been to London, I’ve been to France, and shee-it, I’ve been west of PA.
But I always come home to New York City.
Collounsbury, email me next time you’re in town.
MR
I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean since I graduated from Bowling Green State University. And while I’m not a genius by any means, I’m not an idiot.
Anyway, the point was, I live in WHAT I THINK is the greatest city, so just because you’ve been through a hard time, I’m not going to change my mind.
I guess i’ll have to grab my black turtleneck, head to New York and have a real New Yorker show me how fun and non-pretentious Greenwich Village can be
jar
Nah, it’s a NYC reference, pure and simple. Maeglin’s saying that these Wall Street imports don’t know NYC geography so they fake it.
And get you outta the Village, Mid-Town and so forth to see where some action is.
Yep. Bowling Green’s way downtown in Battery Park City. Tavern on the Green is an overpriced restaurant on 67th and Central Park West.
I meant no offense to your college or anything. Sorry to have been confusing.
The Village is both not particularly fun and pretentious, hence I don’t hang out there. 
Alphabet City and the meatpacking district are a bit more to my taste. Then again, I generally prefer fun bars to asinine galleries and “poetry slams.”
And please, for at least the last ten (twenty?) years any black turtlenecks you might find in the West Village would be layered either (a) under a quilted Chanel jacket or (b) over a tourist from Winetka, who’se wearing it with a fuzzy purple cardigan 'cause it’s the only thing left in her suitcase that isn’t wrinkled.
Next you’ll be asking what’s playing at the Purple Onion.
To elaborate on Maeglin’s point, which in the law world I’ve found so true - people who move here from out of town often act like assholes because they haven’t yet developed the social systems that would restrain them. It’s really no different from ugly tourists, whether football yobs in Majorca or Newlywed Game winners in Acapulco. New Yorkers do tend to be a tolerant sort, perhaps we endure a higher degree of assholedom than most places. But even we have limits - otherwise Mark Green would have won yesterday!
Oh and I really can’t resist - Maeglin, my good man, when did Bowling Green move to Battery Park City? When last I saw it it was still by the Customs House, on the other side of BP from BPC…
OxyMoron makes a very good point. Bowling Green is in fact north of Battery Park, which places it outside the city proper. I withdraw, duly humiliated.
Truer words have never been spoken.
From a Queens native: Screw you, Collounsbury. Queens has the most diverse population in the city. Some of the best Chinese, Korean and Indian food anywhere. And we can actually see the sky. And we have beaches. And Archie Bunker and that Fran Drescher idiot don’t actually live here.
“Downtown & Midtown Manhattan =/ NYC”
Damn straight they don’t.
Like jarbaby, I live in Chicago. Unlike her, I have an abiding affection for NYC.
I don’t bestow my affections easily–NYC had to earn it. Earn it she did, in lots of little ways. Yeah, little ways. For the biggest city, she has deftness and subtlety.
In my tourist days, a small museum called the Frick took my breath away more than the Met, and the first Korean food I ever had thrilled me more than The Quilted Giraffe.
In my business days, the enthusiasm of two bleary-eyed associates impressed me more than the snobbery of their work-avoiding senior partner.
In my in-law days, the pizza parlors and corner bakeries of Sheepshead Bay won my heart more than the shopping or the musicals of Manhattan.
If you’re begging NYC to prove its worth but only looking at the big events (Broadway, big money, big restaurants), I don’t think you’re giving NYC a real chance–those aren’t the things that burn in my heart.
Time for Simpsons quotes:
Homer–“New York is a hellhole!”
“Welcome to New York: Home of the World-Weary Poseur.”
I feel your love.
Yeah, yeah, that’s what you tell yourselves to make up for the lousy architecture. Brooklyn not only has a diverse population, but even more whack food like Senegalese cuisine (best in the city, hah) and some dope buildings.
Queens, come on, how can anyone respect themselves with a place called Flushing…
Yeah, and you have to keep your eyes fixed on it cause of those butt-ugly houses in Astoria.
(Yeah, yeah I know Astoria ain’t Queens but it sure does discourage)
Shrug.
Relevance?
We’ll agree there.
Astoria ain’t Queens?
Den what is it? It sure ain’t da Bronx.
And what’s the matter with Fran Drescher? I’ve had the hots for her ever since THIS IS SPINAL TAP.