I think I like the lower crime-edness of today than the 1980s.

NYC was a get in, get out kind of place for my (suburban) family; today I have no qualms about taking my (young) family on a day trip.

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718-498-1043, that's 718-498-ten-fooohty-three, out there in Brooklyn.

"Do-de-do, walkin' on the bridge, just minding my own-GAH!"

You're Welcome

So ... just the NYC of the 20teens, then.

Thanks, important safety tip.

Um, Batman?

Jonathan Hohensee: I think that's what at the core of what is wrong with America in the 21st Century - unfettered capitalism and a lack of a social safety net has created a landscape in which a homogenized, one-size-fits all ideology eats up individualism. And, among other things, all of these stores are becoming the working base for kids just getting in the work force, and so instead of working for a mom-and-pop shop in which their bosses are some sort of people with agency and personality, they're working for an automated system in which they train based on the expectations of the lowest common denominator. And that's how these kids learn work skills first time out...it's not a sustainable system on any rung.

Translation "waaah, I can't afford to live where I want to and still just play in my band and wait tables".

/gentrification rules

I was in NYC a couple of years ago to change buses while traveling from Boston to D.C. on the cheap. It really did look like a Disneyfied version of its former self.

I used to play in NYC back in the 80s. Yes, it was an unlivable shiathole. OTOH, the scariness of it kept most of the boring suburbanites out. (Except for me.) And things were a lot more interesting then, in good ways as well as bad. Commercial rents were a lot more affordable so there were lots of funky little shops and ethnic places and boutiques, not all of which were upmarket. Residential rents were affordable so four guys who were all struggling musicians or artists or whatever and had shiatty day jobs working in food service or retail could share a loft that doubled as practice space. There was lots of room for other groups of people who had been marginalized by society in one way or another and who had come to NYC to do their thing. I used to love to shop at second-hand clothing stores in the East Village, went out clubbing (Danceteria, Mars, Red Zone, Underground, Limelight, Pyramid), ate out at all sorts of odd little places.

All of that's gone now. As the children and grandchildren of the people who fled the city for the suburbs recolonize the city, they're bringing suburban boringness and sterility with them. Plus, the internet has brought various niche cultures to middle America. Now there's very little in NYC that I couldn't get in a suburban mall, or order off the internet. Why bother?

Maybe I'm just being overly-nostalgic for my youth. But then, there are still people who want to be musicians, or artists, or whatever, and who want to collaborate with others like them. There are still groups who are marginalized in society as well, and who want to be somewhere that'll accept them or at the very least where the neighbors will leave them alone and not judge them. Where do all those people go, now that our cities have become playgrounds for the rich?

HempHead: [gothamist.com image 640x503]

Thats the worst golf course I have ever seen.

My father and paternal grandparents are buried in that cemetery. Can't tell from the picture, but it really is one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever been in.

I miss the Manhattan I grew up with. Yeah there was crime, and Times Square was dirty, but it had personality. It really was a great city. Now it's all chain stores. Miss the mom and pop stores in SoHo. Got great clothes there.

At least you could get a rez at the Dorsia

ChuDogg: downtownkid: Moved to the East Village in 1986 and never left. It's changed a lot, and I've enjoyed all of it. The run is over, though. As late as a couple years ago there were virtually no chain restaurants. Now there are a dozen Subway sandwich shops, an IHOP, soon getting the second 7-11 in the neighborhood. Hate to be "that guy" but it really is over, the neighborhood is disappearing. At least the weird, fun, creative parts of it. At this point it might as well be the parts of the Upper East Side east of third avenue. Boring shiat. Gotta figure out the next great place to live, but it was lots of fun around here.

Im youngin, but I used to visit in early 2000s (yeah Im B&T but i know Ny) and honestly I can say its changed over the last 10 years rapidly. Pretty much all of manhatten is upscale now. I also remember when williamsburg was getting a rep from with all these new fangled "hipsters". Now their building multimillion dollar apts there. A friend of mine bought a condo there that overlooks the city skyline for a cool million, estimates it would probably sell for close to 10 now. Every year its a little bit different. At this rate in another 10 ears the whole of brooklyn and queens will be gentrified as well.

Hope you got rent control at least


Rent Stabilized. Pay a little less than half of market value. I remember when the edgier types started leaving Alphabet City for the wilds of Williamsburg in the early 90's. I looked out there but it was almost exclusively Hasids and Puerto Ricans. I thought that neighborhood would never take off.

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humanshrapnel

That is all.

I'll know who to ask for, the number to call, their name and location for the rest of my effin life.

/Best ad campaign evar.

gut hipsters, take their lesbian librarian glasses and sell them on CL. Kill whomever comes to claim glasses.

/no profit
//better country

geekbikerskum: All of that's gone now. As the children and grandchildren of the people who fled the city for the suburbs recolonize the city, they're bringing suburban boringness and sterility with them. Plus, the internet has brought various niche cultures to middle America. Now there's very little in NYC that I couldn't get in a suburban mall, or order off the internet. Why bother?

Bullshiat, I grew up in a horrible upper middle class suburb, however gentrified NYC has become it is not remotely the same.

Maybe I'm just being overly-nostalgic for my youth.

You are, immensely and ridiculously and with little grasp of reality.

But then, there are still people who want to be musicians, or artists, or whatever, and who want to collaborate with others like them. There are still groups who are marginalized in society as well, and who want to be somewhere that'll accept them or at the very least where the neighbors will leave them alone and not judge them. Where do all those people go, now that our cities have become playgrounds for the rich?

Brooklyn at the moment, tons of farking musicians working in food service living 4 deep around, and if they get priced out of here they will move somewhere else. Just because things changed once you got old doesn't mean everyone is living in a suburb.

most of the DUMBO hipsters grew up FAR from NYC, so they have NO idea.

I get the impression that if I want to relive my youth and have the crap scared out of me from the new york of old (1978-1988) - that time where the Bronx was perpetually on fire, the best places to go for that are:

Amtrak coming out of Baltimore (Heading North): You won't believe the sheer number of scary empty buildings. Totally like the Bronx back in the day.

Detroit: Although I think Detroit has it a little on the 'more intense' side. You could leave the Bronx. Sure Times Square was essentially needle park (and so was needle park), but I get the impression that you could drive for miles in Detroit and not ever leave.

Bronx, Circa 1979:



Seriously, you GTFO when you ended up there by accident.

JeffTL: Cabrini-Green, which was atrocious not all that long ago, is gone and signs point to gentrification.

I was almost murdered in Cabrini-Green, when Van Halen's 1984 came out.

These are pictures of what NYC looked like, so why are people so fascinated at similar pictures of Detroit in the same state? Its almost like everyone hopes for Detroit to fail but yet America's City(tm) must survive...

jeffrey626: These are pictures of what NYC looked like, so why are people so fascinated at similar pictures of Detroit in the same state? Its almost like everyone hopes for Detroit to fail but yet America's City(tm) must survive...

Detroit is in Michigan dumbass.

12349876: skinink: Everything I know about New York in the 80's I learned from

this

[ecx.images-amazon.com image 333x500]

And

"Was"? New York might be safer, and there is a lot to do there if you have money, but for most people you're still paying $3,000 a month to live in a rat-infested shoebox.

I thought this was common knowledge.

I think however, that people are also missing out on the sheer overwhelming atmosphere - things you can't easily describe. Like for instance, all the Taxis in NYC and the boroughs were this, and usually in this shape:



Do you have any idea what it's like to be stuffed into a Checker Cab late at night, screaming through 1980s Manhattan at 80 miles per hour, passing through all the grunge, crap and filth hanging onto the oh-shiat handle for dear life? While your cabby is sealed in the front with a sliding partition so thick it could stop the bullet of a .44 Magnum, hell-bent on racing the other Checker Cab who just flipped him off?

/It was AWESOME
//And it'll never happen again, like that.

I work in the West Village, and most of the people that live there are girls from the midwest and south who saw Sex in the City, have lived here for under five years, who have no idea what New York City used to be like.

My fiancee's family owned a whole city block in Chelsea and gave it away in the 70's to buy a small house in New Jersey. Huge luxury condos there now and a New York Sports Club.

Now, there parents rent them $4,000 a month one bedroom apartments and they make fun of me for "not being a New Yorker" like them, because I was born across the river.

Good thing they usually do this over cocaine or alcohol or I would have quit a long time ago.

freewill: Once, upstate, I was crossing a dimly lit intersection when I heard a noise like a monkey howling. Within seconds, a drunken white guy staggered up to me and called me a honkey. Then he stumbled off around the corner, and, after a moment, I heard him scream from the next block "DON'T GO STARTING SHIAT YOU CAN'T FINISH! YOU WEREN'T A GREAT ATHLETE, LIKE I WAS!"

My first night ever in Paris I went out of the hotel (Sofitel La Defense) looking for food. Was treated to much the same thing, in a language I don't speak. Couldn't get back in until hotel security heard my "muse" hitting the windows with his shopping cart.

Am I to understand there's actual nostalgia for crime-ridden, concrete, urban death-maze hellholes?

b2theory: FlashHarry: i first visited manhattan in 1989. over the next two decades or so, i visited a couple of dozen more times. each visit, it was less scuzzy and more upscale. to the point where, in my last visit three years ago, it was unrecognizable. it's kind of sad, actually.

It's still a shiathole. The rent just went up. Then again, where else are self-important rich kids from the Midwest going to play Sex In the City?

Ok, just read this now. Made me very happy.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking. My camera's bigger than yours, right? It's not fair."

New York's alright if you like saxophones.

Steven Seagal takes some mean photos.

brianbankerus: "State" also means "condition", potential dumbass

You sounds fun at parties.

brianbankerus: Captain_Ballbeard: jeffrey626: These are pictures of what NYC looked like, so why are people so fascinated at similar pictures of Detroit in the same state? Its almost like everyone hopes for Detroit to fail but yet America's City(tm) must survive...

Detroit is in Michigan dumbass.

"State" also means "condition", potential dumbass

Detroit is in the same condition, so what's your problem?

Those photos are pretty hard to kill. That guy who took those must have been above the law to go on deadly ground to take those.

organizmx: My fiancee's family owned a whole city block in Chelsea and gave it away in the 70's to buy a small house in New Jersey.

Sounds like you married into a family of serious business acumen and foresight..

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Now it's across the street from an "Intoteca".

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Before / After

After/After

lilplatinum: organizmx: My fiancee's family owned a whole city block in Chelsea and gave it away in the 70's to buy a small house in New Jersey.

Sounds like you married into a family of serious business acumen and foresight..

Hey, if I wanted to marry for money I would have married one of these chicks from the south who now occupy Manhattan.

East Side, West Side. All about the toW HOLY CRAP GET IN THE CAR