See You at the Club
August 24, 2020 5:06 PM Subscribe
Author, entrepreneur, chess master, and comedian James Altucher has declared that New York City is dead forever and not coming back. Author, actor, and comedian Jerry Seinfeld disagrees.
If rents go down, won't people go there? Even if New York City ain't what it was, it's still New York City and probably a lot of people would be happy to have the chance to live there. Working remotely goes both ways, if there aren't jobs in NYC you can live there and work at a company in Boise or whatever. And where there's people, there will be restaurants and shit to do.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:16 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:16 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
Former sucks because it is hyperbolic about the difficulties and especially about "bandwidth," latter sucks because it is MAGA American exceptionalism in NYC flavor.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:20 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:20 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Interesting piece from Altucher, though a little too concerned with the well-being of landlords for my taste. Seinfeld is even more obnoxious than I remembered. It seems that New York is indeed a land of contrasts.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:21 PM on August 24, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:21 PM on August 24, 2020 [6 favorites]
talk about how "NYC is over" comes primarily from a viewpoint of consumption. Seinfeld's rebuttal does, too. but NYC is home to about 9 million people. It can't just "end."
We should be talking about how to invest in our society here, not just how to extract from it.
posted by entropone at 5:24 PM on August 24, 2020 [29 favorites]
We should be talking about how to invest in our society here, not just how to extract from it.
posted by entropone at 5:24 PM on August 24, 2020 [29 favorites]
In early March, many people (not me), left NYC when they felt it would provide safety from the virus and they no longer needed to go to work and all the restaurants were closed. People figured, "I'll get out for a month or two and then come back."
They are all still gone.
Anecdotally, my friends who left in March are slowly trickling back. They all work remote and have no reason to come back. They just wanna hang out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by airmail at 5:28 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
They are all still gone.
Anecdotally, my friends who left in March are slowly trickling back. They all work remote and have no reason to come back. They just wanna hang out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by airmail at 5:28 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Relevant: The Death of a Once Great City: The fall of New York and the urban crisis of affluence, by Kevin Baker (Harper's magazine, July 2018).
posted by lathrop at 5:28 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by lathrop at 5:28 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
On the one hand, the city has tens of trillions of dollars of real estate, dozens of world-class museums, the de-facto strongest restaurant scene in the western hemisphere, the largest concentration of artists in the country, and millions of people willing to pay 60% of their income for rent.
On the other hand, this dude apparently knows SEVERAL people who are calling it quits on the great urban experiment.
The facts have spoken. Everybody pack your bags, we're gonna bulldoze Manhattan to the ground and turn the whole thing into a theme park.
posted by Mayor West at 5:29 PM on August 24, 2020 [41 favorites]
On the other hand, this dude apparently knows SEVERAL people who are calling it quits on the great urban experiment.
The facts have spoken. Everybody pack your bags, we're gonna bulldoze Manhattan to the ground and turn the whole thing into a theme park.
posted by Mayor West at 5:29 PM on August 24, 2020 [41 favorites]
I wish there was a rebuttal article that wasn’t pure abuse. It was basically a FB post from some Boomer about “snowflakes.” Not that I really expect better from Seinfeld. The one point he made was about the intangibles. But what intangibles can there be if everyone stays gone?
posted by Countess Elena at 5:30 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 5:30 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
New York was great when it sucked. Can you imagine CBGB there now? This will all be for the good. Eventually.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:37 PM on August 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by sjswitzer at 5:37 PM on August 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
Anyway, with a tad less sarcasm:
Now a third wave of people is leaving. But they might be too late. Prices are down 30–50% on both rentals and sales no matter what real estate people tell you. And rentals are soaring in the second- and third-tier cities.
I keep seeing these thinkpieces published about how the trends of the last fifteen years are abruptly reversing, and people are leaving the city in droves. There's probably a kernel of truth there: living in the city kind of sucks right now. The rent hasn't gone down, but all the amenities that make it worth paying that kind of scratch are suspended. Thus, argue the Boomers wielding editorial authority, everyone must be headed back to the suburbs. Back to where it's nice and quiet and white and safe, like they knew we would.
Except no one has the faintest shred of evidence that this is anything but a short-lived shockwave that made Millenials panic and go back to live at home for a while when they lost their jobs. You think rents are down 30-50% in desirable neighborhoods? Come try to rent in the ardent green vales of southern Boston, my droogs! Year over year prices are unchanged, and the supply shock that was supposed to materialize around September 1 (when every lease in the city turns over) keeps mysteriously failing to appear. By my count, it has just under seven days to do so, but the real estate groups around here are mostly full of people panicking about finding a moving truck this late.
There are for sure going to be some interesting long-term impacts from COVID in cities. If you want to write 5,000 histrionic words about the death of urban centers, you'll be completely wrong, but I bet the Atlantic will pay you handsomely for your efforts anyway. Meanwhile, those of us actually living in cities will just keep on living our lives, working remotely and waiting for the vaccine to get rid of the goddamn lines to get into the grocery store,
posted by Mayor West at 5:40 PM on August 24, 2020 [23 favorites]
Now a third wave of people is leaving. But they might be too late. Prices are down 30–50% on both rentals and sales no matter what real estate people tell you. And rentals are soaring in the second- and third-tier cities.
I keep seeing these thinkpieces published about how the trends of the last fifteen years are abruptly reversing, and people are leaving the city in droves. There's probably a kernel of truth there: living in the city kind of sucks right now. The rent hasn't gone down, but all the amenities that make it worth paying that kind of scratch are suspended. Thus, argue the Boomers wielding editorial authority, everyone must be headed back to the suburbs. Back to where it's nice and quiet and white and safe, like they knew we would.
Except no one has the faintest shred of evidence that this is anything but a short-lived shockwave that made Millenials panic and go back to live at home for a while when they lost their jobs. You think rents are down 30-50% in desirable neighborhoods? Come try to rent in the ardent green vales of southern Boston, my droogs! Year over year prices are unchanged, and the supply shock that was supposed to materialize around September 1 (when every lease in the city turns over) keeps mysteriously failing to appear. By my count, it has just under seven days to do so, but the real estate groups around here are mostly full of people panicking about finding a moving truck this late.
There are for sure going to be some interesting long-term impacts from COVID in cities. If you want to write 5,000 histrionic words about the death of urban centers, you'll be completely wrong, but I bet the Atlantic will pay you handsomely for your efforts anyway. Meanwhile, those of us actually living in cities will just keep on living our lives, working remotely and waiting for the vaccine to get rid of the goddamn lines to get into the grocery store,
posted by Mayor West at 5:40 PM on August 24, 2020 [23 favorites]
Neither of these people live in New York City. They live in a shadow city, accessible only to the rich, that is coterminous with New York City and incidentally shares the name “New York City,” but whose extent is perpendicular in every other respect to the city we’re talking about. Either of them may be right about the city they inhabit, but the key question for those of us who don’t live there is: who gives a shit what they think?
posted by invitapriore at 5:42 PM on August 24, 2020 [104 favorites]
posted by invitapriore at 5:42 PM on August 24, 2020 [104 favorites]
My friends who live there are all rolling their eyes so hard it must be affecting the tides about this latest spate of people saying NYC is over. (I lived there ten years and moved away for a bunch of reasons, none of which was NYC is over. It's a city that attracts scads of interesting and talented people and changes a lot. It's hard to live in, in many ways. I miss it sometimes.)
posted by less of course at 5:57 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by less of course at 5:57 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
The way I see it is, this will also depend on whether the US learns it's lessons from Covid-19 and heavily invests in public health and significantly improves it's health care system. Because there is no reason to believe there will not be another pandemic that hits the US in 5 to 10 years.
posted by FJT at 6:03 PM on August 24, 2020
posted by FJT at 6:03 PM on August 24, 2020
...there is no reason to believe there will not be another pandemic that hits the US in 5 to 10 years.
Or autumn.
posted by j_curiouser at 6:09 PM on August 24, 2020
Or autumn.
posted by j_curiouser at 6:09 PM on August 24, 2020
If, as seems certain, the indy spaces are getting wiped out by this crisis, then the best thing we can hope for is that the folks who would have been happier in Phoenix or South Florida but came to NYC and SF from FOMO go away and make a little more room for the people who want to be there.
posted by wotsac at 6:10 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by wotsac at 6:10 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
If hedge fund managers are saying New York City is over, I think that's reason for optimism, and I'm actually not trying to be facetious.
posted by holborne at 6:16 PM on August 24, 2020 [25 favorites]
posted by holborne at 6:16 PM on August 24, 2020 [25 favorites]
It seems to be a common practice with NY landlords to leave a property empty, sometimes for years on end, rather than accept whatever lower rent the market is prepared to pay.
It will be interesting to see how long that practice holds up when capital values are falling and a lot of tenants are not paying rent.
posted by Lanark at 6:19 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
It will be interesting to see how long that practice holds up when capital values are falling and a lot of tenants are not paying rent.
posted by Lanark at 6:19 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
I swear they said NYC was over like twenty years ago.
posted by double bubble at 6:23 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by double bubble at 6:23 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
"Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside"
posted by clavdivs at 6:27 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside"
posted by clavdivs at 6:27 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Q: If a hedge fund manager and Jerry Seinfeld got in a fight to the death, who would win?
A: Everyone.
posted by Ian A.T. at 6:27 PM on August 24, 2020 [48 favorites]
A: Everyone.
posted by Ian A.T. at 6:27 PM on August 24, 2020 [48 favorites]
What is the deal with hyperbole
posted by hijinx at 6:30 PM on August 24, 2020 [18 favorites]
posted by hijinx at 6:30 PM on August 24, 2020 [18 favorites]
My dearest friends,
I am living amongst the natives in the remote borough of Breuckelen, much seen in the play we watched every Sunday 'morn: Womens. Much wonder exists, as it did exist with Hannah and her unbetrothed friends frolicking from Dutch farm to Dutch farm, speaking of this place fo wonder. I had little worry in my early days, for after Church we partook in what the natives called "B`runch" which consisted of the most exotic fruits broths mixed with a Slavic liquor known as "vodka." The people were most joyous after consuming this, and we even romanced about which boy we might see pick an apple that day.
But I warn thee! Do not come here, the rent has gone up a whole gilder and the Oxen which run from Breuckelen to the Isle of Man has been running local until the next Autumn! It is run with the creature most foul: clearing house boys. They come from the snobbiest of institutions, some bearing that Wycombe School hunch, trading their clearing paper between banks. One even devised a monetary system based on locks he calls lockcoin, spending most his days amongst his differential machines.
For I beg of you this New York city is dead! This neighborhood tavern is now a wine tavern, doth everyone comes there on the Saturday and now they must sit and complain. Most my neighbors work for a variety of media papers, in fact they all work for media companies, including a new one called Conde d'Naste. I ask which one young maiden do if she stay unmarried and she replied she is a "field influencer" and showed how easy it was to milk a cow which she captures on her daguerreotypes, she claims 44 views a week.
Luckily I have heard of a place in which "everyone" has admit to moving, steading upon the Earl of Pitt's land. They say they are still near the city and I know everyone is doing it because the media has told me so. Ye all I have here is but running water two furloughs away and only one Momofuku Milk Bar.
Yours Truly,
Twenty Something from Ohio but Still Claims to be New Yorker, 1832.
posted by geoff. at 6:36 PM on August 24, 2020 [48 favorites]
I am living amongst the natives in the remote borough of Breuckelen, much seen in the play we watched every Sunday 'morn: Womens. Much wonder exists, as it did exist with Hannah and her unbetrothed friends frolicking from Dutch farm to Dutch farm, speaking of this place fo wonder. I had little worry in my early days, for after Church we partook in what the natives called "B`runch" which consisted of the most exotic fruits broths mixed with a Slavic liquor known as "vodka." The people were most joyous after consuming this, and we even romanced about which boy we might see pick an apple that day.
But I warn thee! Do not come here, the rent has gone up a whole gilder and the Oxen which run from Breuckelen to the Isle of Man has been running local until the next Autumn! It is run with the creature most foul: clearing house boys. They come from the snobbiest of institutions, some bearing that Wycombe School hunch, trading their clearing paper between banks. One even devised a monetary system based on locks he calls lockcoin, spending most his days amongst his differential machines.
For I beg of you this New York city is dead! This neighborhood tavern is now a wine tavern, doth everyone comes there on the Saturday and now they must sit and complain. Most my neighbors work for a variety of media papers, in fact they all work for media companies, including a new one called Conde d'Naste. I ask which one young maiden do if she stay unmarried and she replied she is a "field influencer" and showed how easy it was to milk a cow which she captures on her daguerreotypes, she claims 44 views a week.
Luckily I have heard of a place in which "everyone" has admit to moving, steading upon the Earl of Pitt's land. They say they are still near the city and I know everyone is doing it because the media has told me so. Ye all I have here is but running water two furloughs away and only one Momofuku Milk Bar.
Yours Truly,
Twenty Something from Ohio but Still Claims to be New Yorker, 1832.
posted by geoff. at 6:36 PM on August 24, 2020 [48 favorites]
James Altucher is, basically, a con man. I wouldn't take anything he says without an entire box full of salt.
posted by SansPoint at 6:46 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 6:46 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
New York is dead, long live New York, and they're both jerks. Didjaevernotice didn't need to send the Times his missive from the Hamptons, picking apart Altucher's blog post (your colleague's in exile in "South Florida" and crying, try to unearth some compassion in your billionaire's heart), and as for Altucher -- well, his bit about "We had a show in May. An outdoor show. Everyone socially distanced. But we were shut down by the police. I guess we were superspreading humor during a very serious time," is described thusly in a June 12 NYT article: And on May 31, Stand Up NY sponsored a show on the sidewalk and parking spaces on West 78th Street, using a pickup truck bed as a stage. Police officers showed up toward the beginning of the show, then left without doing anything, [Altucher's co-owner, Dani] Zoldan said. But toward the end, they returned to shut down the show (which might have had something to do with a woman complaining from her apartment window, he said).
The article, A New York Comedy Club Tries to Bring Back Stand-Up (NYT, June 12, 2020), is more concerned with what happened after that lengthy, sidewalk-blocking event: Despite current rules limiting bars and clubs from opening to the public, the live comedy club Stand Up NY on the Upper West Side held an invite-only show for professional comics on Wednesday night [June 9]. The club was not exactly sneaky about it. Outside, there was a sandwich board with the words “illegal comedy” and an arrow pointing inside. Neighbors and at least one passerby dropped in. There's a photo of a comedian during his set, his mask pulled down to rest on his chin; he described himself as so happy to be at the mic again that he "just started screaming." The entire show ran about five hours, and Altucher's fellow owner, at least, planned to continue holding these 'invite-only' shows four days a week. He anticipated being "able to invite about 25 audience members" to the shows by mid-July: Zoldan, who has co-owned the club for more than a decade, was aware of the risks of putting on his first indoor evening of the pandemic: the police could shut down the show or he could have been subject to a fine. “I’m just doing it the way I want to do it — and responsibly,” he said.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:49 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
The article, A New York Comedy Club Tries to Bring Back Stand-Up (NYT, June 12, 2020), is more concerned with what happened after that lengthy, sidewalk-blocking event: Despite current rules limiting bars and clubs from opening to the public, the live comedy club Stand Up NY on the Upper West Side held an invite-only show for professional comics on Wednesday night [June 9]. The club was not exactly sneaky about it. Outside, there was a sandwich board with the words “illegal comedy” and an arrow pointing inside. Neighbors and at least one passerby dropped in. There's a photo of a comedian during his set, his mask pulled down to rest on his chin; he described himself as so happy to be at the mic again that he "just started screaming." The entire show ran about five hours, and Altucher's fellow owner, at least, planned to continue holding these 'invite-only' shows four days a week. He anticipated being "able to invite about 25 audience members" to the shows by mid-July: Zoldan, who has co-owned the club for more than a decade, was aware of the risks of putting on his first indoor evening of the pandemic: the police could shut down the show or he could have been subject to a fine. “I’m just doing it the way I want to do it — and responsibly,” he said.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:49 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
The city's population increased from about 3 1/2 million in 1900 to nearly 8 million in the post-war decades. Then came the 70s, the time of "Ford to City: Drop Dead", and by 1980 it was down to just over 7 million. By 2000, it was back to 8 million.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:53 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:53 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Did the city literally burn down? It's done that a few times. Some folks need to chillax in the worst way.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:10 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:10 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Wait wait wait, it’s this guy? “How to Break All the Rules and Get Everything You Want“? More fool me for listening to his big brain ideas
posted by Countess Elena at 7:14 PM on August 24, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 7:14 PM on August 24, 2020 [7 favorites]
Good, get out. And take all the chain stores with you.
My biggest hope for the last couple months has been that the commercial rent market craters and retail rents go down so that the West Village can come back to life. Regular people can open businesses again, and all the gentrifiers who moved here for no good reason other than to do what they could do in any other place in the country would all go somewhere else.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 7:18 PM on August 24, 2020 [15 favorites]
My biggest hope for the last couple months has been that the commercial rent market craters and retail rents go down so that the West Village can come back to life. Regular people can open businesses again, and all the gentrifiers who moved here for no good reason other than to do what they could do in any other place in the country would all go somewhere else.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 7:18 PM on August 24, 2020 [15 favorites]
I couldn’t read the Seinfeld rebuttal because NYT paywall, but did I miss something where Jerry Seinfeld stabbed a puppy? Not sure why he’s suddenly cancelled.
posted by um at 7:19 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by um at 7:19 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
I swear they said NYC was over like twenty years ago.
The Burg started in 2006 (I think pre-Youtube!) and sounds suspiciously modern, "The Burg: the hipster world capital where trust fund kids pretend to be starving artists, starving artists pretend to be able to live completely off of credit cards, and everybody pretends not to notice. Who says gentrification isn't funny?"
Or are you talking about, also from 2006, the LCD Soundsystem classic New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down?
Or 1975 when it went bankrupt? Or 1984 when Walter Peck shut down noxious, possibly hazardous waste chemicals in a ghost storage facility?
posted by geoff. at 7:21 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
The Burg started in 2006 (I think pre-Youtube!) and sounds suspiciously modern, "The Burg: the hipster world capital where trust fund kids pretend to be starving artists, starving artists pretend to be able to live completely off of credit cards, and everybody pretends not to notice. Who says gentrification isn't funny?"
Or are you talking about, also from 2006, the LCD Soundsystem classic New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down?
Or 1975 when it went bankrupt? Or 1984 when Walter Peck shut down noxious, possibly hazardous waste chemicals in a ghost storage facility?
posted by geoff. at 7:21 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
If, as seems certain, the indy spaces are getting wiped out by this crisis, then the best thing we can hope for is that the folks who would have been happier in Phoenix or South Florida but came to NYC and SF from FOMO go away and make a little more room for the people who want to be there.
I love this sentence so much I wanted it to be said a second time because BINGO.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend a week or so after 9/11; someone who worked near the Times Square/Broadway district. It was when the city was opening back up again, and they'd started running Broadway shows again. He said that every day, when he went out to fetch his lunch at one of the local delis or diners, he saw an odd thing - he saw a huge line developing at the "same-day tickets" window for The Producers, which was the Hamilton of its day in terms of ticket demand. And it was baffling - who were these people and what were they doing there? And why the same-day ticket window only?
And then, he said, it hit him. The people lining up for same-day tickets were New Yorkers who'd all realized that "hey, all of those tourists who reserved their tickets for this week probably are cancelling their trips and staying home, and that means....I may actually get a ticket for The Producers finally. Dang, lemme get down there." And that, he said, is when he realized that New York was gonna be just fine.
There are those of you in this thread who say "who cares" when it comes to New York - but secretly care anyway. There is something about this city that calls to all of you, that insists you deal with it. Some of you decide you hate it, and some decide you'd never live there (but you still wanna visit). You pay homage to our greatest heartbreak every year - some out of sincerity, and some just out of habit. But you all end up dealing with New York City one way or another.
Some of you come here to live for a while because it's a thing you think is just a thing you do. Some of you were bankrolled by your parents, and some weren't. Some just come to work here and go home elsewhere. And some come here and find home - or are determined to make a corner of this city "home", even if you have to fight for it, because you know at some level that your idea of "home" is damn weird and this is the only place where you even have a prayer of manifesting that.
The wealth inequity has thrown things off around here for a while. But those with the means to leave are doing precisely what so many of the fussbudgets here say people should do if New York is become unliveable for them - they're getting out. There are those of us who are determined to stay regardless, because for whatever reason, that attitude and free-for-all suits us.
Cities can't die. They can only change. It's absolutely fine to realize you have also changed and need to leave; but there's a huge difference between "New York no longer works for me because I've changed" and "New York is dead". Leaving New York because you're no longer happy there, and insisting that you left because "it's dead", is pretty damn narcissist - and after Trump and Giuliani we've all had it up to here with narcissists around here, so we're a little ornery.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:22 PM on August 24, 2020 [32 favorites]
I love this sentence so much I wanted it to be said a second time because BINGO.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend a week or so after 9/11; someone who worked near the Times Square/Broadway district. It was when the city was opening back up again, and they'd started running Broadway shows again. He said that every day, when he went out to fetch his lunch at one of the local delis or diners, he saw an odd thing - he saw a huge line developing at the "same-day tickets" window for The Producers, which was the Hamilton of its day in terms of ticket demand. And it was baffling - who were these people and what were they doing there? And why the same-day ticket window only?
And then, he said, it hit him. The people lining up for same-day tickets were New Yorkers who'd all realized that "hey, all of those tourists who reserved their tickets for this week probably are cancelling their trips and staying home, and that means....I may actually get a ticket for The Producers finally. Dang, lemme get down there." And that, he said, is when he realized that New York was gonna be just fine.
There are those of you in this thread who say "who cares" when it comes to New York - but secretly care anyway. There is something about this city that calls to all of you, that insists you deal with it. Some of you decide you hate it, and some decide you'd never live there (but you still wanna visit). You pay homage to our greatest heartbreak every year - some out of sincerity, and some just out of habit. But you all end up dealing with New York City one way or another.
Some of you come here to live for a while because it's a thing you think is just a thing you do. Some of you were bankrolled by your parents, and some weren't. Some just come to work here and go home elsewhere. And some come here and find home - or are determined to make a corner of this city "home", even if you have to fight for it, because you know at some level that your idea of "home" is damn weird and this is the only place where you even have a prayer of manifesting that.
The wealth inequity has thrown things off around here for a while. But those with the means to leave are doing precisely what so many of the fussbudgets here say people should do if New York is become unliveable for them - they're getting out. There are those of us who are determined to stay regardless, because for whatever reason, that attitude and free-for-all suits us.
Cities can't die. They can only change. It's absolutely fine to realize you have also changed and need to leave; but there's a huge difference between "New York no longer works for me because I've changed" and "New York is dead". Leaving New York because you're no longer happy there, and insisting that you left because "it's dead", is pretty damn narcissist - and after Trump and Giuliani we've all had it up to here with narcissists around here, so we're a little ornery.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:22 PM on August 24, 2020 [32 favorites]
You guys really want me to add to environmental waste because I put my fist through my laptop screen, don't you.
posted by eagles123 at 7:27 PM on August 24, 2020
posted by eagles123 at 7:27 PM on August 24, 2020
Born and raised NYer here. They're both right. And both wrong. Even if you are on the side that NYC is seeing a temporary down swing, show me one person who thinks deBlasio is doing a good job as Mayor.
posted by AugustWest at 7:41 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by AugustWest at 7:41 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oh, deBlasio is an enormous disappointment. But New York's had sucky mayors before and it will again - and it can withstand them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:45 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:45 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Wait... NYC is changing in some ways? That must mean it's dead!
Balderdash. Here in Chicago, I keep hearing this crap about my town, too. Yes we have some bad shit happening here. And some people are leaving. But guess what? When you sell your house/condo, usually that means that someone else bought it from you.
I like NYC quite a lot. I'll be happy to see it change. Cities always change.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:00 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Balderdash. Here in Chicago, I keep hearing this crap about my town, too. Yes we have some bad shit happening here. And some people are leaving. But guess what? When you sell your house/condo, usually that means that someone else bought it from you.
I like NYC quite a lot. I'll be happy to see it change. Cities always change.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:00 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
My grandmother was born in Brooklyn. My mother was born on Long Island. I was 24 years old the first time I saw Manhattan from a plane window. By then, it was 1995 and I didn’t actually step foot in the city until 6 months after 9/11. I love NYC and it pains me I may never see it again due to cancer and the pandemic. I wanted to write something clever and funny but I just don’t have it in me. I hope the city recovers and more importantly I hope the people recover. Fuck both of these clowns.
posted by photoslob at 8:01 PM on August 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by photoslob at 8:01 PM on August 24, 2020 [11 favorites]
Here in Chicago, I keep hearing this crap about my town, too.
And those folks can move back to DuPage County. Or don't... apparently they're electing Democrats now.
posted by wotsac at 8:08 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
And those folks can move back to DuPage County. Or don't... apparently they're electing Democrats now.
posted by wotsac at 8:08 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
I was so mad about this I wrote a Medium essay, something I have frequently mocked others for doing in the past.
Life didn't start when you got here; it won't end when you leave. I'm not happy to see you go but I'm not going to lie down and die over it.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:09 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Life didn't start when you got here; it won't end when you leave. I'm not happy to see you go but I'm not going to lie down and die over it.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:09 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Given DeBlasio's base of support, the people that vote for him probably aren't posting on metafilter. Which kind of goes to the point that these articles reflect a very thin slice of the 8+ million people who live in the city. Mayors are often captive to broader economic trends and federal policies that concentrate the effects of poverty, deindustrialisation, and racism in cities with with inadequate financial support to deal with those issues.
Either way, that dipshit Altucher is a much a part of the fabric of the city as the hipsters, artists, immigrants, and tourists. It was established as the banking capital, after all, long before it become a center of arts and culture.
He really hit touched all the bases though: crime, taxes, annoyance at social distancing, and late nineties hyper-atomized techno-utopian/dsytopian fantasies of everyone living in their suburban/exurban bubble and interacting solely via computer screen.
It sounds like hell to me. I'll write it once, and I'll keep writing it: a civilization takes care of those who cannot take of themselves due to sickness or disaster. A civilized country wouldn't let people go hungry and businesses go bankrupt due to the economic fallout of a pandemic response.
This guy knows all these bankers and hedge fund managers? This is the world you all created.
I see he started doing the deficit dance at the end of his screed. Well, here is how I'll end mine: If he and his Wall St. buddies convince he dems to do the deficit dance assuming they manage to win in November, those looters are going to do more than knock threatenly on his building, wherever he decides to run to.
That's what happens when civilizations seek to be civilized.
posted by eagles123 at 8:39 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Either way, that dipshit Altucher is a much a part of the fabric of the city as the hipsters, artists, immigrants, and tourists. It was established as the banking capital, after all, long before it become a center of arts and culture.
He really hit touched all the bases though: crime, taxes, annoyance at social distancing, and late nineties hyper-atomized techno-utopian/dsytopian fantasies of everyone living in their suburban/exurban bubble and interacting solely via computer screen.
It sounds like hell to me. I'll write it once, and I'll keep writing it: a civilization takes care of those who cannot take of themselves due to sickness or disaster. A civilized country wouldn't let people go hungry and businesses go bankrupt due to the economic fallout of a pandemic response.
This guy knows all these bankers and hedge fund managers? This is the world you all created.
I see he started doing the deficit dance at the end of his screed. Well, here is how I'll end mine: If he and his Wall St. buddies convince he dems to do the deficit dance assuming they manage to win in November, those looters are going to do more than knock threatenly on his building, wherever he decides to run to.
That's what happens when civilizations seek to be civilized.
posted by eagles123 at 8:39 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
entropone: NYC is home to about 9 million people. It can't just "end."
Sure it can.
EmpressCallipygos: Cities can't die.
Sure they can.
I mean, look, I don't know what's going to happen, and you're both probably right that NYC will live on, but things we never thought could happen are happening all the time. Just the history of 2020 alone should tell you that yes, NYC could, in fact, just end. Just die. The universe is up for grabs these days.
posted by tzikeh at 8:53 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Sure it can.
EmpressCallipygos: Cities can't die.
Sure they can.
I mean, look, I don't know what's going to happen, and you're both probably right that NYC will live on, but things we never thought could happen are happening all the time. Just the history of 2020 alone should tell you that yes, NYC could, in fact, just end. Just die. The universe is up for grabs these days.
posted by tzikeh at 8:53 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Cities can't die.
Weirdly, I was just reading about Ur, largest city on the planet 4000 years ago. Now the lone and level sands stretch far away, to pinch an anachronistic line.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:12 PM on August 24, 2020 [17 favorites]
Weirdly, I was just reading about Ur, largest city on the planet 4000 years ago. Now the lone and level sands stretch far away, to pinch an anachronistic line.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:12 PM on August 24, 2020 [17 favorites]
I can't decide which of these two I'd prefer to just go away forever. I propose a challenge: We lock them in an unfurnished room together and then...
Actually, that works. Just lock them in an unfurnished room together. Lots of locks. More locks than keys.
There's a Baskin Robbins drive thru not far from my house. I'm not big on ice cream, and tend to prefer a pistachio or coffee gelato when I do get the craving, but the other day it was just under 100 degrees F, I was already out running (COVID-limited) errands, and I was thinking I could totally go for some sort of fake cherry, or bubblegum, or other artificial blue or green frozen treat.
As I pulled around the corner, I saw that the line for the drive thru snaked around the block. I decided that I didn't want it that bad, and went home instead.
If, on the other hand, I had Jerry Seinfeld and James Altucher locked in an unfurnished room together, and I had the only keys, I would have waited in that line until I got to the window, tried a few free samples, tipped generously, and then gone right back to the end of the line...
posted by Anoplura at 9:12 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
Actually, that works. Just lock them in an unfurnished room together. Lots of locks. More locks than keys.
There's a Baskin Robbins drive thru not far from my house. I'm not big on ice cream, and tend to prefer a pistachio or coffee gelato when I do get the craving, but the other day it was just under 100 degrees F, I was already out running (COVID-limited) errands, and I was thinking I could totally go for some sort of fake cherry, or bubblegum, or other artificial blue or green frozen treat.
As I pulled around the corner, I saw that the line for the drive thru snaked around the block. I decided that I didn't want it that bad, and went home instead.
If, on the other hand, I had Jerry Seinfeld and James Altucher locked in an unfurnished room together, and I had the only keys, I would have waited in that line until I got to the window, tried a few free samples, tipped generously, and then gone right back to the end of the line...
posted by Anoplura at 9:12 PM on August 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
place dumb. no place not dumb place good.
- all of this
posted by Bwentman at 10:00 PM on August 24, 2020
- all of this
posted by Bwentman at 10:00 PM on August 24, 2020
They say the old boy may be barely breathing. But where else can you do a half a million things, all at a quarter to three?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:06 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:06 PM on August 24, 2020 [5 favorites]
I mean, New York's alright, if you like saxophones
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:12 PM on August 24, 2020 [25 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:12 PM on August 24, 2020 [25 favorites]
well, i guess it's appropriate. by destroying all the major urban centers in america by mismanaging the virus, the right wingers have finally got the revenge they so desperately wanted and yet also feared: the culture will even out and there won't be anyone to look down on them anymore as people move from cities to cheaper places... except now we'll all have to actually live together.
posted by wibari at 11:01 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by wibari at 11:01 PM on August 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Neither of these people live in New York City. They live in a shadow city, accessible only to the rich, that is coterminous with New York City and incidentally shares the name “New York City,” but whose extent is perpendicular in every other respect to the city we’re talking about. Either of them may be right about the city they inhabit, but the key question for those of us who don’t live there is: who gives a shit what they think?
So, so this. While I love the idea of NYC, there has been no time in my entire life when I've had even a 50th of the money it would take to live there. You know how a person feels to hear a great place he could never live in is doing horribly?
posted by JHarris at 11:17 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
So, so this. While I love the idea of NYC, there has been no time in my entire life when I've had even a 50th of the money it would take to live there. You know how a person feels to hear a great place he could never live in is doing horribly?
posted by JHarris at 11:17 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
Generations of Gambols cluttered up Brooklyn, but I live far away now. For many years, I've had a recurring nightmare about an underwater New York. The lowest levels of Manhattan office buildings have station tracks beside canals; submarine buses and taxis attach to airlocks before retracting their doors; Grand Central's Main Concourse, only murky, sealed off, and given over to a mechanized, multi-layered hydroponics scheme. Sometimes there's a sprawling amusement park. The big draw is the roller coaster, because it has a section of rail higher than sea level for part of the year. You can see the sun, and the top of the bank, and the sailboats of the rich, parked in the slips by their front doors.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:34 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:34 PM on August 24, 2020 [3 favorites]
Can cities die from economic shock? We've got some very good examples in living memory to give the answer as no. A good comparison worth making w/r/t the effects of pandemic-economic crisis in developed countries now, is to what happened in cities in the former Soviet Union when that country ceased to exist: the 'shock therapy' of the 1990s meant a vast bump in unemployment, capital flight and the creation of oligarchs, hyperinflation, rampant open corruption, the collapse of vast numbers of big and small firms, and outward migration. Many people simply didn't get paid for years on end, or were paid in meaningless currency, or in kind (i.e. with products made by their company). So far nothing happening in the US compares economically to the hard Russian years of the 1990s. Nor does the real suffering of the 1990s compare to the rest of the Russian 20thC, or the campaign of 1812! Yet places like Moscow and St Petersburg are still very much there, physically and culturally.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:58 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:58 PM on August 24, 2020 [4 favorites]
I live in Seattle. the forced decentralization of tech could be an amazing thing for this city. All that buildout, suddenly obsoleted.
The kids will find uses for it in the aftertimes. Someday the Amazon balls will be the home of the new Funhouse (or whatever the kids invent that's more fun for them than old person punk rock.)
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:49 AM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
The kids will find uses for it in the aftertimes. Someday the Amazon balls will be the home of the new Funhouse (or whatever the kids invent that's more fun for them than old person punk rock.)
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:49 AM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
I always knew I hated Jerry Seinfeld, it is great to get this confirmation of what an asshole he is. His counterpoint to the other guy is basically "you suck", and that is not an argument. New York City will still be around, sure, but it will be flattened and diminished and not as super important as it was before these times.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:07 AM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Meatbomb at 1:07 AM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh BOY I am excited for how wrong some of you are. NYC is against some ropes at the minute, but the kinds of shitty white people who are dramatically moving out will mean more room for all the rest of all people and it will become way more 3D than ever. It is my heaven, even in these shittier of times. I have rescued people and have been rescued by people here, and that only continues. Love to my fellow NYCians and open arms to anyone who hopes to live here and take part in it rather than take from it.
posted by lauranesson at 1:44 AM on August 25, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by lauranesson at 1:44 AM on August 25, 2020 [11 favorites]
The Seinfeld piece had a lot of mean slams against Florida and I can't remember when I last saw or heard any of Jerry Seinfeld's voice, but it's in my head such that I could really hear him dismissively say "Floooorida", which is a testament to how detailed one's mental models of strangers can be.
Iris Gambol: I hear you. I got a few chapters into Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 which portrays an NYC that has gone partially underwater and yet still lives, changed but alive. I would like to finish it because I think if I have a clear idea of what might actually happen after the waters rise then I won't feel as nightmarish about it.
I live in Queens and there have been so many days in the past six months when I did not leave my apartment at all, and it felt like I didn't live anywhere in particular.... my home sitting in NYC like a brain in a jar. I have been missing my city. So it is wonderful to find a MeFi thread of strangers and acquaintances in or adjacent to New York, talking about what we love, what we remember, what doesn't work, what we worry about, what might happen next. Like: I recently saw a tweet articulating that "New Yorkers are angry nice. They would give you the shirt off their back if it means that you get on your subway and out of everyone's way faster." and that made me feel a kind of connection and love too.
Starting several months ago, the New York City government gives out free meals every day to anyone who wants them, any weekday at hundreds of locations throughout the city. "No one will be turned away at any time". "Vegetarian and halal options available at all sites". "No registration or ID required". That, to me, is part of the greatness of this city.
posted by brainwane at 3:47 AM on August 25, 2020 [13 favorites]
Iris Gambol: I hear you. I got a few chapters into Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 which portrays an NYC that has gone partially underwater and yet still lives, changed but alive. I would like to finish it because I think if I have a clear idea of what might actually happen after the waters rise then I won't feel as nightmarish about it.
I live in Queens and there have been so many days in the past six months when I did not leave my apartment at all, and it felt like I didn't live anywhere in particular.... my home sitting in NYC like a brain in a jar. I have been missing my city. So it is wonderful to find a MeFi thread of strangers and acquaintances in or adjacent to New York, talking about what we love, what we remember, what doesn't work, what we worry about, what might happen next. Like: I recently saw a tweet articulating that "New Yorkers are angry nice. They would give you the shirt off their back if it means that you get on your subway and out of everyone's way faster." and that made me feel a kind of connection and love too.
Starting several months ago, the New York City government gives out free meals every day to anyone who wants them, any weekday at hundreds of locations throughout the city. "No one will be turned away at any time". "Vegetarian and halal options available at all sites". "No registration or ID required". That, to me, is part of the greatness of this city.
posted by brainwane at 3:47 AM on August 25, 2020 [13 favorites]
Given DeBlasio's base of support, the people that vote for him probably aren't posting on metafilter.
...I....voted for DeBlasio. He's severely disappointed me, but I did vote for him.
> Cities can't die.
Weirdly, I was just reading about Ur, largest city on the planet 4000 years ago. Now the lone and level sands stretch far away, to pinch an anachronistic line.
Okay, I yield to the American Pedantic Association to say that cities can in fact die in the face of cataclysmic catastrophe. I maintain, however, that a segment of a city's population moving out is not, in fact, a cataclysmic, city-destroying catastrophe.
Either of them may be right about the city they inhabit, but the key question for those of us who don’t live there is: who gives a shit what they think?
I barely have one-fiftieth the income of these men. Do I have the right to call bullshit on the notion that my home is "dead"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:51 AM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
...I....voted for DeBlasio. He's severely disappointed me, but I did vote for him.
> Cities can't die.
Weirdly, I was just reading about Ur, largest city on the planet 4000 years ago. Now the lone and level sands stretch far away, to pinch an anachronistic line.
Okay, I yield to the American Pedantic Association to say that cities can in fact die in the face of cataclysmic catastrophe. I maintain, however, that a segment of a city's population moving out is not, in fact, a cataclysmic, city-destroying catastrophe.
Either of them may be right about the city they inhabit, but the key question for those of us who don’t live there is: who gives a shit what they think?
I barely have one-fiftieth the income of these men. Do I have the right to call bullshit on the notion that my home is "dead"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:51 AM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
I swear they said NYC was over like twenty years ago.
These kinds of stories pop up every generation or so. Basically, it's just some people suddenly realizing they aren't the latest-and-greatest anymore.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:39 AM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
These kinds of stories pop up every generation or so. Basically, it's just some people suddenly realizing they aren't the latest-and-greatest anymore.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:39 AM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
A quip starting to circulate on social media:
"New York City isn't dead. Even if it were, New Yorkers would still just step over it to get on the subway."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:52 AM on August 25, 2020 [21 favorites]
"New York City isn't dead. Even if it were, New Yorkers would still just step over it to get on the subway."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:52 AM on August 25, 2020 [21 favorites]
Neither of these people live in New York City. They live in a shadow city
The number one thing that all the takes on this question have shown me is that we've all been living in different New Yorks this whole time.
I have a lot of complicated thoughts about it myself, but the biggest thing I'm noticing is the lack of consideration, in both the optimistic and pessimistic takes, of the fact that:
1. The presence of people matters. Not just the stubborn people who are here because we're just tougher than other people and we can hack it and fuck you. But the people who don't have family to move in with "temporarily" in the suburbs even if they'd like to. People who have essential in-person jobs here. People whose communities are based here, in a million senses of the word. People who just live here, because this is where they live. That last one covers most people I know.
and
2. The absence of people matters. Not just the rich white people who are sad about "looting" and "homeless" and that rent might go down (???) and that they can't hang out at Cipriani or whatever with their fellow rich white people anymore. But people who left because they lost their jobs or apartments. People whose mental health would suffer too much being here alone. People who still live here but aren't out and about the way they normally would be because they're immunocompromised, they're too exhausted from their essential job and/or taking care of their kids and/or protesting police brutality every day, it's not worth the risk to ride public transit, they live too far out to walk or ride a bicycle, or they can't afford or ride a bicycle. People who are sick. People who have died, over 23,000 of us.
People who say "New York is dead" and people who say "Everything I love about New York is still the same" seem, to me, to be callously ignoring the biggest part of what New York actually is.
posted by lampoil at 5:58 AM on August 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
The number one thing that all the takes on this question have shown me is that we've all been living in different New Yorks this whole time.
I have a lot of complicated thoughts about it myself, but the biggest thing I'm noticing is the lack of consideration, in both the optimistic and pessimistic takes, of the fact that:
1. The presence of people matters. Not just the stubborn people who are here because we're just tougher than other people and we can hack it and fuck you. But the people who don't have family to move in with "temporarily" in the suburbs even if they'd like to. People who have essential in-person jobs here. People whose communities are based here, in a million senses of the word. People who just live here, because this is where they live. That last one covers most people I know.
and
2. The absence of people matters. Not just the rich white people who are sad about "looting" and "homeless" and that rent might go down (???) and that they can't hang out at Cipriani or whatever with their fellow rich white people anymore. But people who left because they lost their jobs or apartments. People whose mental health would suffer too much being here alone. People who still live here but aren't out and about the way they normally would be because they're immunocompromised, they're too exhausted from their essential job and/or taking care of their kids and/or protesting police brutality every day, it's not worth the risk to ride public transit, they live too far out to walk or ride a bicycle, or they can't afford or ride a bicycle. People who are sick. People who have died, over 23,000 of us.
People who say "New York is dead" and people who say "Everything I love about New York is still the same" seem, to me, to be callously ignoring the biggest part of what New York actually is.
posted by lampoil at 5:58 AM on August 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
Weirdly, I was just reading about Ur, largest city on the planet 4000 years ago. Now the lone and level sands stretch far away,
To be fair, all the cool people had left Ur by, like, 5000 years ago, because that scene was so over.. By the end, it was just a bunch of mostly unoccupied, high rise temples owned by billionaire goat-fund managers, a bunch of Mesopotamian Starbucks, and aging stand-up comics carving smug think pieces into The Tigris, a popular liberal tablet of the day.
posted by thivaia at 6:32 AM on August 25, 2020 [13 favorites]
To be fair, all the cool people had left Ur by, like, 5000 years ago, because that scene was so over.. By the end, it was just a bunch of mostly unoccupied, high rise temples owned by billionaire goat-fund managers, a bunch of Mesopotamian Starbucks, and aging stand-up comics carving smug think pieces into The Tigris, a popular liberal tablet of the day.
posted by thivaia at 6:32 AM on August 25, 2020 [13 favorites]
Here in Chicago, I keep hearing this crap about my town, too.
I mean this has been a staple of any social media page for the city, the mayor, Time Out Chicago, etc for years. Some asshole who lives in, like, Mattoon and came to the city one time for a Cubs game ranting about how "everyone" is leaving the city because of "the taxes" and "the violence." Now he's more smug because those restaurants he never went to are closed.
I am biased of course -- I didn't flee to the suburbs for the pandemic so much as get stuck there. It's a constant source of guilt both that I had the privilege to ride out the first wave in a house with a yard, where there are so few people that being outdoors was not the slightest bit fraught with peril or anxiety, AND that I hated it so fucking much.
Yeah, some of my favorite places are gone now. Well, a lot of them. And others are hanging by a thread. But I'm still clawing my own face off to get back.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:44 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
I mean this has been a staple of any social media page for the city, the mayor, Time Out Chicago, etc for years. Some asshole who lives in, like, Mattoon and came to the city one time for a Cubs game ranting about how "everyone" is leaving the city because of "the taxes" and "the violence." Now he's more smug because those restaurants he never went to are closed.
I am biased of course -- I didn't flee to the suburbs for the pandemic so much as get stuck there. It's a constant source of guilt both that I had the privilege to ride out the first wave in a house with a yard, where there are so few people that being outdoors was not the slightest bit fraught with peril or anxiety, AND that I hated it so fucking much.
Yeah, some of my favorite places are gone now. Well, a lot of them. And others are hanging by a thread. But I'm still clawing my own face off to get back.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:44 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
There is something about this city that calls to all of you, that insists you deal with it.
For me it's the narcissism.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 6:54 AM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
For me it's the narcissism.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 6:54 AM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
Yeah, some of my favorite places are gone now.
Adam's Ribs is still by the Dearborn Station though, right? RIGHT?!? (I had a cut on my lip, the pain was exquisite)
posted by valkane at 7:00 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Adam's Ribs is still by the Dearborn Station though, right? RIGHT?!? (I had a cut on my lip, the pain was exquisite)
posted by valkane at 7:00 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Wake me up when someone who isn't male, white or rich joins the discussion.
James Altucher is, basically, a con man. I wouldn't take anything he says without an entire box full of salt.
This needed to be the first comment, or at least near the top.
As far as I can tell now, he writes crappy Kindle books, blogs a bit, and appears on any podcast who asks him.
Meh.
With regards to Seinfeld, I loved his show, before the last episode gave us all the finger, but he, like so many celebrities, need to shut the fuck up for the most part.
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 8:35 AM on August 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
James Altucher is, basically, a con man. I wouldn't take anything he says without an entire box full of salt.
This needed to be the first comment, or at least near the top.
As far as I can tell now, he writes crappy Kindle books, blogs a bit, and appears on any podcast who asks him.
Meh.
With regards to Seinfeld, I loved his show, before the last episode gave us all the finger, but he, like so many celebrities, need to shut the fuck up for the most part.
posted by Bill Watches Movies Podcast at 8:35 AM on August 25, 2020 [4 favorites]
There are those of you in this thread who say "who cares" when it comes to New York - but secretly care anyway.
I really, really don't care. Don't want to live there or visit. I personally always assumed NYC would suffer the most when it finally floods beyond repair, which unfortunately will happen sooner rather than later.
I don't wish ill on anyone there. It's never nice when someone's home changes for the worst. I am awfully tired of the insistence that everyone the world over adores NYC. It's not true.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:01 AM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
I really, really don't care. Don't want to live there or visit. I personally always assumed NYC would suffer the most when it finally floods beyond repair, which unfortunately will happen sooner rather than later.
I don't wish ill on anyone there. It's never nice when someone's home changes for the worst. I am awfully tired of the insistence that everyone the world over adores NYC. It's not true.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:01 AM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
Based on the real estate boom in New England from people moving here from NYC I don’t necessarily think NYC is dead but it fills me with dread as to what will happen to my rural area when they all decide that now that they have ridden out the pandemic here it’s time to go back to NYC.
posted by terrapin at 9:14 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by terrapin at 9:14 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
There are those of you in this thread who say "who cares" when it comes to New York - but secretly care anyway.
of COURSE I care, even though I hate that city, couldn't flee fast enough, and cannot stand to spend more than a day there even a full 20 years after leaving. I care when I read that Detroit is losing its tenuous grip on regrowth and then again when I read about the troubling implications of its regrowth. I care when I read that rents in Minneapolis have begun to squeeze the working class out of a city that has been a vibrant and incredible refuge for an urban middle class, and how the squeeze is highlighting centuries of unresolved racial tension that it's high time get resolved. I care when I see Los Angeles in the grips of an absolutely inhuman homelessness crisis.
Any place that is someone's home is important. It is weird to me that for some reason most people only think three cities in the world are actually important and all those other peoples' homes can go screw.
Plus if all those rich NYC idiots start moving to Chicago instead it's gonna fuck up my day so I'mma need them to stay put.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:56 AM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
of COURSE I care, even though I hate that city, couldn't flee fast enough, and cannot stand to spend more than a day there even a full 20 years after leaving. I care when I read that Detroit is losing its tenuous grip on regrowth and then again when I read about the troubling implications of its regrowth. I care when I read that rents in Minneapolis have begun to squeeze the working class out of a city that has been a vibrant and incredible refuge for an urban middle class, and how the squeeze is highlighting centuries of unresolved racial tension that it's high time get resolved. I care when I see Los Angeles in the grips of an absolutely inhuman homelessness crisis.
Any place that is someone's home is important. It is weird to me that for some reason most people only think three cities in the world are actually important and all those other peoples' homes can go screw.
Plus if all those rich NYC idiots start moving to Chicago instead it's gonna fuck up my day so I'mma need them to stay put.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:56 AM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
> it's not worth the risk to ride public transit,
There are safety issues with public transit but the subway is safer than you think with regard the Coronavirus, according to the NYTimes.
posted by fragmede at 10:10 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
There are safety issues with public transit but the subway is safer than you think with regard the Coronavirus, according to the NYTimes.
posted by fragmede at 10:10 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Plus if all those rich NYC idiots start moving to Chicago instead it's gonna fuck up my day so I'mma need them to stay put.
If they did move there, would them moving there kill Chicago? My hunch is no.
(Personally, though, I'm absolutely not advocating that they do move there - partly because I don't want to subject Chicago to them, and partly because my preferred plan would be more like the Golgafrinchan Ark B which we then fire into the sun.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on August 25, 2020
If they did move there, would them moving there kill Chicago? My hunch is no.
(Personally, though, I'm absolutely not advocating that they do move there - partly because I don't want to subject Chicago to them, and partly because my preferred plan would be more like the Golgafrinchan Ark B which we then fire into the sun.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on August 25, 2020
No it wouldn't "kill" Chicago but our rents are bad enough as it is, and we still have one or two occupied storefronts left which we'd like to keep.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:40 AM on August 25, 2020
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:40 AM on August 25, 2020
There are safety issues with public transit but the subway is safer than you think with regard the Coronavirus, according to the NYTimes.
Thank you for the link, but I'm not personally declaring that the subway isn't worth the risk. I'm saying that the absence--for whatever reason, including that they don't think public transit is worth the risk--of people who would normally be in a given part of NYC makes a difference in what it's like for the people who are there.
posted by lampoil at 11:16 AM on August 25, 2020
Thank you for the link, but I'm not personally declaring that the subway isn't worth the risk. I'm saying that the absence--for whatever reason, including that they don't think public transit is worth the risk--of people who would normally be in a given part of NYC makes a difference in what it's like for the people who are there.
posted by lampoil at 11:16 AM on August 25, 2020
One thing that gives me hope, actually, is the growing number of ferry lines that give an alternate transportation option. Someone I work with is moving to a new apartment this week, to a neighborhood that would be over an hours' commute by subway. However, the ferry halves that. Similarly, someone in the largely middle-class neighborhood of Bay Ridge who needs to get into the Financial District would be on a subway for an hour - but the ferry knocks 20 minutes off that. There's another line that gets people from the Bronx down to Wall Street equally fast, and there's two other express lines they're adding to get people from Staten Island or Coney Island direct to Midtown within only a half hour.
The ferries are about the same price as the subway, and they're making an effort to give people in some of the further-flung parts of the city options for more direct commutes to where most people work. A part of me is amused by the irony that ferries are what commuters used before there were bridges connecting the 5 boroughs, so we're kind of regressing here, but it somehow feels like one place where the city is trying to do something right.
(Also, the crews on the ferry boats do not mess around when it comes to making sure the passengers wear masks at all times!)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:24 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
The ferries are about the same price as the subway, and they're making an effort to give people in some of the further-flung parts of the city options for more direct commutes to where most people work. A part of me is amused by the irony that ferries are what commuters used before there were bridges connecting the 5 boroughs, so we're kind of regressing here, but it somehow feels like one place where the city is trying to do something right.
(Also, the crews on the ferry boats do not mess around when it comes to making sure the passengers wear masks at all times!)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:24 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Similarly, someone in the largely middle-class neighborhood of Bay Ridge who needs to get into the Financial District would be on a subway for an hour - but the ferry knocks 20 minutes off that.
Shhhhhh....
posted by geoff. at 12:35 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Shhhhhh....
posted by geoff. at 12:35 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Shhhhhh....
uh...on the other hand the ferry boats also run kind of small and they would probably be crowded, I swear.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:51 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
uh...on the other hand the ferry boats also run kind of small and they would probably be crowded, I swear.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:51 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Has anyone written the "New York was already dead and now might come back" hot take? Large swathes of Manhattan have been intolerable for years, nothing but high end retail, expensive restaurants, and multi-million dollar condos as far as the eye can see. What is there is those neighborhoods for most New Yorkers? They're wastelands.
Who knows what will happen? Maybe the wealthy wastelands will all rise from the dead in a year, and New York will be even worse for the rest of us. Maybe the 1% and the stores and services that cater to them will get winnowed down and the people can reclaim Manhattan.
People who leave in a huff because they saw a homeless person on their stoop and get out and keep going right into the sea.
posted by Mavri at 1:03 PM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
Who knows what will happen? Maybe the wealthy wastelands will all rise from the dead in a year, and New York will be even worse for the rest of us. Maybe the 1% and the stores and services that cater to them will get winnowed down and the people can reclaim Manhattan.
People who leave in a huff because they saw a homeless person on their stoop and get out and keep going right into the sea.
posted by Mavri at 1:03 PM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
Thanks, tiny frying pan, for letting us know you don’t give a fuck about anyone who lives here. Charming sentiment.
posted by holborne at 1:32 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by holborne at 1:32 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Thanks, tiny frying pan, for letting us know you don’t give a fuck about anyone who lives here.
Now, be fair. Tiny frying pan says right in that comment that "I don't wish ill on anyone there. It's never nice when someone's home changes for the worst."
I took that comment as more like "I have nothing against New Yorkers, because of common humanity. I do, however, wish that they'd shut up about their damn city sometimes", which - let's face it, is a fair cop.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:54 PM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
Now, be fair. Tiny frying pan says right in that comment that "I don't wish ill on anyone there. It's never nice when someone's home changes for the worst."
I took that comment as more like "I have nothing against New Yorkers, because of common humanity. I do, however, wish that they'd shut up about their damn city sometimes", which - let's face it, is a fair cop.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:54 PM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]
In today's Wall Street Journal: "Speculators circle Ravaged Beirut Properties"
Mind you, there was similar talk after the first Lebanese War back in the seventies. And again later.
As to New York - too soon to tell. These trends take decades.
(For those unfamiliar with the last downside of New York, Wikipedia, oddly enough, has a decent run down of the city's running down at that time.)
posted by BWA at 2:25 PM on August 25, 2020
Mind you, there was similar talk after the first Lebanese War back in the seventies. And again later.
As to New York - too soon to tell. These trends take decades.
(For those unfamiliar with the last downside of New York, Wikipedia, oddly enough, has a decent run down of the city's running down at that time.)
posted by BWA at 2:25 PM on August 25, 2020
which - let's face it, is a fair cop.
No, it isn’t a fair cop, at least not here. No one is forcing anyone to participate in this discussion, which is, you know, specifically labeled as being about New York City. Maybe If you don’t give a fuck about the topic and people who want to discuss it, you can just scroll on by rather than taking the time to come in to say how much you don’t give a fuck about what happens to anyone who lives here.
posted by holborne at 2:45 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
No, it isn’t a fair cop, at least not here. No one is forcing anyone to participate in this discussion, which is, you know, specifically labeled as being about New York City. Maybe If you don’t give a fuck about the topic and people who want to discuss it, you can just scroll on by rather than taking the time to come in to say how much you don’t give a fuck about what happens to anyone who lives here.
posted by holborne at 2:45 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]
Nobody is forcing anyone to participate but that was in direct response to a comment saying:
There are those of you in this thread who say "who cares" when it comes to New York - but secretly care anyway. There is something about this city that calls to all of you, that insists you deal with it. You pay homage to our greatest heartbreak every year - some out of sincerity, and some just out of habit. But you all end up dealing with New York City one way or another.
Empress I wouldn't call you out but since you yourself called it a fair cop...this is a pretty hyperbolic statement. We remember DC and Pennsylvania on 9/11 too, by the by, whose hearts were not any less broken.
Now is there any point in pretending that someone reading this thread has No interest whatsoever in the fate of a major American city? Of course not. But it's possible for one to actually just be invested in the fate of the cities that people call home, without giving any particular shit about NYC because it is NYC.
And the commenter literally said they do in fact give a fuck about the people.
I don't know why New York commands such love from people, I will never understand it. But having a city of my own that I love I trust that the love is genuine and based in something. However I will say that nobody outside of my city gives a shit about my city, and we all get on OK regardless, bumbling around with our outsized sense of local pride. So if one or two people on Metafilter aren't convinced that New York Is The Greatest That Ever Was Or Will Be, I promise: it will be okay.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:21 PM on August 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
There are those of you in this thread who say "who cares" when it comes to New York - but secretly care anyway. There is something about this city that calls to all of you, that insists you deal with it. You pay homage to our greatest heartbreak every year - some out of sincerity, and some just out of habit. But you all end up dealing with New York City one way or another.
Empress I wouldn't call you out but since you yourself called it a fair cop...this is a pretty hyperbolic statement. We remember DC and Pennsylvania on 9/11 too, by the by, whose hearts were not any less broken.
Now is there any point in pretending that someone reading this thread has No interest whatsoever in the fate of a major American city? Of course not. But it's possible for one to actually just be invested in the fate of the cities that people call home, without giving any particular shit about NYC because it is NYC.
And the commenter literally said they do in fact give a fuck about the people.
I don't know why New York commands such love from people, I will never understand it. But having a city of my own that I love I trust that the love is genuine and based in something. However I will say that nobody outside of my city gives a shit about my city, and we all get on OK regardless, bumbling around with our outsized sense of local pride. So if one or two people on Metafilter aren't convinced that New York Is The Greatest That Ever Was Or Will Be, I promise: it will be okay.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 3:21 PM on August 25, 2020 [6 favorites]
I barely have one-fiftieth the income of these men. Do I have the right to call bullshit on the notion that my home is "dead"?
Yes
posted by invitapriore at 6:56 PM on August 25, 2020
Yes
posted by invitapriore at 6:56 PM on August 25, 2020
I don't know why New York commands such love from people
There isn't anything "Hamilton: An American Musical" can't do.
I will never understand it
Friend, have you seen Hamilton?
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:57 PM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
There isn't anything "Hamilton: An American Musical" can't do.
I will never understand it
Friend, have you seen Hamilton?
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:57 PM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
I knew I could safely stop listening to anything out of Altucher's mouth when he started making pronouncements about how New York is dying for real this time because the internet speed is so good now and everyone can do remote work anyway. Good luck getting your trash collected over zoom, man. Is the bandwidth high enough that the home health aides can use it to turn people in bed from a distance? Oh wait, do those people not count as everyone? It's almost like you think only other rich people are human or something.
posted by ActionPopulated at 12:17 AM on August 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by ActionPopulated at 12:17 AM on August 26, 2020 [2 favorites]
Empress I wouldn't call you out but since you yourself called it a fair cop...this is a pretty hyperbolic statement.
Yes, I was admitting my earlier statement was hyperbolic when I said "it's a fair cop." Sorry that wasn't clear.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:21 AM on August 26, 2020
Yes, I was admitting my earlier statement was hyperbolic when I said "it's a fair cop." Sorry that wasn't clear.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:21 AM on August 26, 2020
Not dying...just resting.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 6:10 AM on August 26, 2020
posted by a humble nudibranch at 6:10 AM on August 26, 2020
There isn't anything "Hamilton: An American Musical" can't do.
I also do not understand how people can tolerate more than 45 seconds of any given musical, so I'm guessing these things are connected in some way!
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:35 AM on August 26, 2020
I also do not understand how people can tolerate more than 45 seconds of any given musical, so I'm guessing these things are connected in some way!
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:35 AM on August 26, 2020
As a CO/CA native who had visited a number of Asian megacities before I ever made it to NYC, I simultaneously love the place and find it highly overrated in some categories.
But the idea that all the temporarily remote workers are going to move to THE REAL AMERICA now is eminently dismissible. Some of us moved to cities for jobs, but plenty of us did it to get the fuck away from the small towns we grew up in.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:35 AM on August 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
But the idea that all the temporarily remote workers are going to move to THE REAL AMERICA now is eminently dismissible. Some of us moved to cities for jobs, but plenty of us did it to get the fuck away from the small towns we grew up in.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:35 AM on August 26, 2020 [4 favorites]
I’m not the only one who feels this way, either. In my building alone, the rent has plummeted almost 30% — more people are moving away than ever before.
Really interested to know if he means percentage of rooms rented or rent charged. That's a big difference in how that bit reads and what it means for the city (and a lot of cities). Metro real estate is a great place to launder foreign money, and there are many cities full of apartments that are to expensive to actually live in.
posted by es_de_bah at 3:21 PM on August 26, 2020
Really interested to know if he means percentage of rooms rented or rent charged. That's a big difference in how that bit reads and what it means for the city (and a lot of cities). Metro real estate is a great place to launder foreign money, and there are many cities full of apartments that are to expensive to actually live in.
posted by es_de_bah at 3:21 PM on August 26, 2020
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