photo from my flickr
London looks for New York's lost edge--and I do my usual complaint to the folks across the pond. [LT]
Alex's "Then & Now" looks back at Ludlow and Cortlandt. [FP]
The vendors ousted from the 17th St. flea market have found a home at the Chelsea Antiques Garage. [CN]
Alligators in the sewers. [CR]
Enjoying the elegance of concrete arches. [FNY]
99X to close on once-doomed 10th Street. [EVG]
Take a walking tour with Lost City Brooks. [LC]
5 comments:
Jeremiah - Good article by the London Times (though maybe they could have looked beyond Manhattan a bit).
I will say, though, having moved back to New York after two years in London, I'd much rather be here. The cost is living is lower, the people are more open - and it's more interesting. Even now. London is a city for the rich, totally gentrified in the most profound sense. And very closed. As far as I could tell, the arts scene was mostly an extension of the advertising industry - never have I seen a place more beholden to it's financial sector. Perhaps that's changing now, but that was certainly the case when I left last year.
Tim
thanks for the linkage, Jeremiah. Much appreciated.
brooks, hope the tours go well.
tim, that's the trouble with new york--no matter what, it's still the only place that's like new york. though i sometimes fantasize about leaving, it's hard to really imagine.
The article was pretty good and it gave alot of space to Jeremiah.
And Gawker published a rebuttal which basically said, "London sucks!" It addressed none of the points in the article, nor did any of the commentators. Actually, I was not happy with my fourth visit to London a few years ago, it seems that everything we complain about on this site seemed to be even worse there. But this has nothing to do with what is happening to New York!
Deep in the article are too points that I thought were particularly apt. First, nothing creative has come out of New York in years. Second, what we (and London) do have is an abundance of the bankers that are destroying the world economy. I don't think people realize how demoralizing this is. New York has an image of being the place where things happen, but where what is happening isn't very interesting but, well, evil, its a different city.
Some of the commentators on the Times site were Middle Americans who posted that they visited the city a few decades ago and it seemed really scary, but they came back recently and its great! Not scary at all! They just remade the point of the writer.
I've seen a gradual shift in the comments here and on articles about New York losing its edge. A few years ago critical commetators were denying that anything different was happening. Now the critics are saying that the city is changing, but are defending the changes.
Also, in the UK papers there were a raft of articles a few months ago about how cool New York was, which seemed almost pushed by the NYC tourism office. This one completely contradicted them.
thanks Ed. i just checked out the Gawker post. i have to say, reading myself criticizing NYC in a foreign paper made me want to argue with myself and defend the city--even though i make the same points i always make. it sounds so different in a non-NYC context!
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