NYC and the Quality of Life

It goes without saying that no one lives in New York for its quality of life -- spending tons of money to live in virtually no space and dealing with the hassle of the traffic, the subways, the dirt, the grime, the crazies on the street -- clearly if all you care about is having a nice home in a nice neighborhood then you should look to reside elsewhere. New Yorkers live here because, except for quality of life, it has everything else.

But some people have found that they can get enough of that everything else elsewhere -- and believe it or not, some people are finding that in, and moving to of all places, Buffalo.

This week's New York magazine has a very thoughtful and insightful story about some New Yorkers who have done just that. You'll faint about how people can rent three-bedroom homes (not apartments, homes) for only $750 a month. Some people can get one-bedroom apartments for $350 a month! Reading this story wasn't enough to make me want to leave NYC but it sure was tempting.

Where the Urban Dream Life Is Going Cheap

Hillary Clinton Speech - 2008 Democratic National Convention

Our girl gave a hell of a good speech last night. She rallied the Democrats and clearly explained why a John McCain presidency -- shudder, cough, spit, vomit, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! -- would be a disaster for this country (of course there should be no need to explain that but it is what it is).

Obviously all those nasty Hillary haters, Republicans, sexists, and other assorted neanderthals out there will trash it and her but, most reasonable people will agree, it was a class act. Bravo!

Classic Mr NYC

Forgive me if you find this incredibly arrogant and lazy, but I have some favorite old blog posts that I would like to share with some of my newer readers. From time to time, I'll put up what I think are some of my better posts which I'm now calling "Classic Mr NYC." Of course just how classic they are is for you to decide :)

From July 27, 2007

"It's a City of Strangers": How to Check Out People on Public Transportation

Okay, admit it: every so often you find yourself on the bus or the subway and suddenly ... a vision walks on. A person of extra-ordinary beauty, someone "really hot" or "totally gorgeous", someone who clashes mercilessly with the kennel of people who usually rides the MTA. This person acts like a magnet for your eyes. Suddenly the ads for Dr Zizmor and the other passengers melt away ... and you lock your eyes on this person and stare ... stare ... stare. But ... oh no! Now you've crossed the line! You've gone over to the other side. You have become ... a creepy person! You're a creepy staring person! And now your l'object d'amour might whip out the pepper spray at any moment. You want to stop staring but you can't ... for the life of you, you just can't! So what do you do? Never fear, for Mr NYC is here to guide you through the art of checking out people on public transportation. Just follow these five simple rules:

1. When you first spot "the person", don't stare too long. Like Jerry Seinfeld once said, act like this person is the sun: you get a sense of the thing, then look away.

2. When you next look at the person, DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY. Use subterfuge. Pretend to read one of the ads above your head or, better yet, act like you're looking for one of the bus or subway maps on the wall. You can then check out the person who ... oh, you know, just happens to be in your line of vision. Make sure people think you are trying to look at something and not someone. Then you can more easily get away with looking at the person.

3. It helps if you have reading material. Then you can look up from it every so often to, you know, see what's going on and to, oh yeah, check out the hottie.

4. When the bus or train pulls into a stop, pretend to stare out the window. You know, you want to see what's going on outside, and who is getting on or off. This is a custom-built moment to check out "the vision."

5. If all else fails, and you just can't keep your eyes off this person, and you've done steps 1 to 4, maybe multiple times, then do this: pretend that, oh darn it, you have a crook in your neck, and you need to rub it and you gotta bend your head, oh, this way ... and then that way ... and you're just looking out ahead of yourself and ... oh wow, there he or she is! What a coincidence!

I hope you will find these steps useful. But please understand: Mr NYC does not, in any way, endorse any kind of harassment or talking to or touching of any stranger on public transportation. There is a galaxy of difference between "checking someone out" and actually trying to interact with another person. I hope this disclaimer is well understood.

And so I conclude with something by Stephen Soundheim, who in his great NYC musical "Company" observed:

It's a city of strangers,
Some come to work, some to play.
A city of strangers,
Some come to stare, some to stay.
And every day
The ones who stay
Can find each other in the crowded streets and the guarded parks,
By the rusty fountains and the dusty trees with the battered barks,
And they walk together past upholstered walls with the crude remarks.
And they meet at parties through the friends of friends who they never know ...

... And another hundred people just got off of the train.

New Yorkers Don't Dream Big Anymore?

Not according to Jennifer 8 Lee of The New York Times.

Does New York Need to Dream Big Again?

According to her, the slow glacial of development in this city is a bad thing. While none would agree that it's a good thing, consider that she actually poses the question at the end of her article, "Is it time for another Robert Moses?" To that, the answer is quite clear: NO!

While I certainly don't like red tape and petty politics and all the nonsense that prevents the city from augmenting itself (like the whole Ground Zero debacle), the idea of once again concentrating that kind of power in another supposed "master builder" is the wrong way to go. If Ms. Lee has read The Power Broker (or my review it, although I doubt it), she might see why that's a very, very bad idea.

New York grew and developed for more than three hundred years before Robert Moses got his hands on it. During that time, we built great things like the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park and the Empire State building and the entire subway system -- the thing we most love about NYC today. Democracy built those things and, while democracy can be a frustrating thing, in the end it's always the best way to go.

Newcomers to New York

Lovely story about the challenges and fears that people who have recently moved to NYC face and need to overcome.

Newcomers Adjust, Eventually, to New York

Having lived in this city all my life, I don't know what this experience is like but it must be an intimidating one. If I wasn't from here, I don't know if I'd have the chutzpah to come. Go them.

The Official Drink of NYC

Does anyone out there drink Snapple? Not being an iced tea man myself, I haven't really acquainted myself with the beverage but, apparently, it's the official drink of the City of New York.

Seriously.

In 2000, Snapple and the city government created a partnership, and Snapple sponsors the visitor's center in Times Square and they only sell Snapple (I think) in city buildings.

Also, if you buy a bottle, the bottle cap has a fun fact inside about NYC you might not know. Example: "The first person in the U.S. arrested for speeding was a NYC cab driver." Interesting.

Snapple was actually founded in Brooklyn in 1972. I always wondered why, when I was in college out of town, I didn't see anyone drink Snapple. Everyone in my high school (except me) loved the stuff but in college no one else did. Only now, only a decade later, do I come to learn that's basically a New York City drink. Boy do I feel foolish. I'm sure most of you won't disagree.

The History of Snapple

End of the Lines

The New York Times has a wonderful story today about, of all things, the last stops on New York City subway lines. It's an interesting and unique delving into a part of this city's untapped psyche.

The Curious World of the Last Stop

Separately, each of these various lines are, as the story indicates, rather lonely and sad places. You're at the end of something, you can go no further. Yet they're also, a in strange way, exciting places -- you can start the whole journey over again, you can be at the beginning. If you've ever gotten off at a last stop or got on at the first stop, you'll know what I mean.

By putting these various stations together and in their own unique context, this story creates a sort of strange community, an end of the line community. As you might imagine, most of these stops are located at the very edges of the city, way up in the Bronx, at the bottom of Manhattan, or on the fringes of Brooklyn and Queens. But scattered as they may be, when you put them together, they seem more than the sum of their parts somehow.

And isn't being more than the sum of its parts what New York City is all about?

(New Lots Avenue subway stop, last on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 line pictured above.)

The Wire - Season Two Titles (Tom Waits)

Like many Johnny Come Lately's to the HBO series The Wire, I've been catching up on it on DVD. And the rumors are true: it really is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. It's easily the greatest TV show about a city -- ever.

That city is Baltimore. It presents the whole complex tableau of cops, criminals, bureaucrats, politicians, lawyers, business people, union workers, journalists -- you name it 0- that make 21st century American cities whir. It also gets at why so many cities are not only crime ridden (drugs, greed, broken families, etc.) but just generally dysfunctional: the people in power benefit from the status quo and those who want to change it are usually shut down (brutally). Careerism and money too often get in the way of doing the right thing. Virtue is punished and venality rewarded. Yes, it's bleak comment on American urban life and policy -- but that doesn't mean it's not fun to watch. Despite being socially conscious, The Wire is massively entertaining and funny. I've never been more riveted by a series.

Most of all, The Wire shows how "law and order" is not a black and white business (racially or morally), how people aren't all good or all bad, how circumstances so often force us to make choices we don't want to make or shouldn't have to make, how the line between right and wrong, ethical and unethical, legal and illegal, is so often very blurry.

I could go on and on about every aspect of the show (the plots, the characters, the performances, the writing) but I couldn't do it justice. It's all perfect. So if you've never seen The Wire, get on Netflix ASAP and order the first season.

Now what does The Wire have to do with NYC? Nothing, sadly. There isn't a show half as good, even a quarter as good, heck even a tenth as good about NYC as "The Wire" is about Baltimore.

What are the big shows about New York? Empty cop procedurals like Law and Order (and it's clones) and CSI: New York or silly shows like Dirty Sexy Money and Lipstick Jungle. The closest NYC ever came to having a "great show" about it was NYPD Blue which managed to start sucking after a couple seasons and was never anywhere near as good as The Wire. Maybe NYC is just too big and too complex for a TV series to it just justice, but I'll hold out hope that maybe one day such a show will come along. Until then, any good New Yorker should watch, enjoy, and celebrate The Wire.

Movie News

For you movie buffs out there, you might find the following interesting:

The Paris Theater -- you know, the one next to the Plaza Hotel on 59th street -- is turning 60 years old next month. It's the oldest continuing art house cinema in the country and it's a real treasure. If you've never gone to see a movie there, you should. It reminds you of a time when movie theaters were really theaters, and going to the movies was a semi-classy event. The Paris has a balcony and a curtain in front of the screen that goes up at showtime. I remember going to see The Remains of the Day there in high school, Life is Beautiful there in college, and then a movie called The Company, one of Robert Altman's last films, a few years ago. My mom told me about going to see movies like The Bridge on the River Kwai and other classics there back in the day. At a time when NYC landmarks like CBGBs are vanishing, let's be thankful the Paris is still there.

2. And if that don't excite you, then this might: The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are coming back to the big screen! From September 12 to October 2, Film Forum will be showing these classic films that were completely restored by Mr. Francis Ford Coppola himself. It's hard tow believe these two movies are almost 40 years old. Needless to say, New York City film geeks are going nuts (that includes me). Get all the info about it here.

Which do you prefer: 1 or 2?

Windmills in NYC?

There will be if Mayor Mike has anything to do about it. Apparently he wants to take us back to the days of the Dutch.

Attention, Mr. Mayor: We Had Windmills 400 Years Ago

What's old is new again. But hey, if it works, why not?