3 ms·

Your characterization of New York is very much that of a visitor, as it should be. "You should be richer" is not the defining characteristic of New York, it's

by afisk 18y ago

Your characterization of New York is very much that of a visitor, as it should be. "You should be richer" is not the defining characteristic of New York, it's "you're a minority." For anyone who has lived here for a year or more, the fact that everyone is a minority on some level is what makes New York breathtaking. The New York you're talking about is also a minority. From the outside, Wall Street and Madison Avenue may seem to dominate. From the inside, they're barely noticeable unless you're in that world. Wall Street and Madison Avenue are swept up in the endless current of people just like the gay Puerto Rican teens who hang out above Pier 40 on Friday nights in the summer. The depth and breadth of "New York" is what makes it truly great. New York has so many worlds swirling around you that you'll never fully understand -- it's humbling and exhilarating to the core. New York's "ambition" is the endless hope of all of those minorities from countless directions -- the ambition you're talking about is much more one dimensional.

Jake 18y ago
your post made me smile. i lived in the city for 14 years. there were the uptown kids, boring upper east-side parties, divorcee moms of the upper west, faux-hipster of avenue a, drug kings of Avenue d, pretentious bowery gays, i-bankers who poked at plebeian lawyers, hedge funders who poked at i-bankers and took home their madison ave. girfriends of west village, little chitaly, 2nd tier murray hill post grads who couldn't afford turtle bay, turtle bay types who only used their apartments for sleep, pretentious chelsea boys vs. the "matured" hell's kitchen gays, soho of old, new soho (new jersey), the area of south midtown of low 30's and upper 20's that to this day still has no identity, battery park city's isolation to the rest of the island, forgetting there's a world past 11th avenue. there really is no one new york when you live in manhattan. if i didn't have a family who loves living out west right by the beach, i would be back in a heartbeat.
inagreyplace 18y ago
While I would agree with your observation that everyone in New York is some sort of minority, and that the city has overall ambitions that are much more varied and interesting than simply "you should make more money," I do think that sentiment is a pretty strong undercurrent in Manhattan. I recently began taking night classes at an art school there, hoping to get away from the obsession with earning more that I felt surrounded by, but on the first night of class, I was bitterly disappointed. The instructor spends his day working for Morgan Stanley, and talks about it often; the general population of the class immediately lost all interest in me when they learned that I'm not currently employed. Overall, I would say that New York has an abundance of different ambitions, but most of them are permeated by a vaguely corporate insistence on caring about getting richer.

by afisk 18y ago

Jake 18y ago

your post made me smile. i lived in the city for 14 years. there were the uptown kids, boring upper east-side parties, divorcee moms of the upper west, faux-hipster of avenue a, drug kings of Avenue d, pretentious bowery gays, i-bankers who poked at plebeian lawyers, hedge funders who poked at i-bankers and took home their madison ave. girfriends of west village, little chitaly, 2nd tier murray hill post grads who couldn't afford turtle bay, turtle bay types who only used their apartments for sleep, pretentious chelsea boys vs. the "matured" hell's kitchen gays, soho of old, new soho (new jersey), the area of south midtown of low 30's and upper 20's that to this day still has no identity, battery park city's isolation to the rest of the island, forgetting there's a world past 11th avenue. there really is no one new york when you live in manhattan. if i didn't have a family who loves living out west right by the beach, i would be back in a heartbeat.

inagreyplace 18y ago

While I would agree with your observation that everyone in New York is some sort of minority, and that the city has overall ambitions that are much more varied and interesting than simply "you should make more money," I do think that sentiment is a pretty strong undercurrent in Manhattan. I recently began taking night classes at an art school there, hoping to get away from the obsession with earning more that I felt surrounded by, but on the first night of class, I was bitterly disappointed. The instructor spends his day working for Morgan Stanley, and talks about it often; the general population of the class immediately lost all interest in me when they learned that I'm not currently employed. Overall, I would say that New York has an abundance of different ambitions, but most of them are permeated by a vaguely corporate insistence on caring about getting richer.