is New York City dead?

NYC seems genuinely out of fashion for the first time in my life, and maybe its history? Williamsburg is a punchline, Manhattan both above and below 14th St is just rich fuxors, seems like everything that used to happen in only NYC or LA now happens in LA or some other ascendant metropolis. I am not particularly worldly or sophisticated or mobile these days so I can't offer much more evidence, this is just my lay observation. What u think?

New York isn't dead.
There are still lots of great things about this city.
The things I value might not be the same things others value, of course.

https://saysomethingvague.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/lcd-soundsystem-t-shirt-losing-my-edge.jpg

no you're dead

okay

I mean, IDK, I was out in bushwick recently on a saturday night and it still seemed happening and teeming with young artsy cutting edge types brimming with energy. However it's been rough for a good amount of time now as far as being a city that young people without a bankroll or a professional job can live in, and that definitely cuts into the creative energy of the city some. I mean I don't even think the bronx offers the kinds of rents today that could be had 20 years ago in brooklyn.

like if you mean "dead" as in "no longer can birth a 'scene' the way it could in the 60s/70s/80s/90s, that might be true just because rents are so high.

I think that is what I mean. Although "scene" sounds a little tinny/reductive, scenes kind of matter. A city births a scene which creates stuff that matters.

Is Paris dead? How about London? Those cities are pretty expensive too, and have been for some time. New York is still a place that attracts ambitious young people, including artists, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

well yeah, I mean a scene as in the beats or the greenwich village folk scene or disco or no wave or whatever. Like the combination of cheap living and high density and educational and arts institutions and economic activity that allows for a scene that actually produces something of worth. Like I just don't think there are many corners of the city left where a bunch of musicians could live close to one another and work more or less full time on their music and pay rent waiting tables part time or whatever. And to the extent such pockets exist, they're scattered at the edges of the city instead of centralized.

All cities are dead because culture travels faster through the Internet than it ever could geographically.

Rising rents making it hard for young people to live there unless they're being bankrolled is basically true for all major international cities now. Even Berlin's getting expensive these days.

But hey, there are always aspiring artists with trust funds, so the city will never die

i don't know the deal w/rents in NYC but i find it funny when people come out to L.A. from there and rhapsodize about how comparatively inexpensive the rent is here.

I don't go out much anymore, so maybe there's some lively cheap shit I'm missing out on.

It's also really hard for some people in late middle age (w/out a LUCRATIVE CAREER) to live here.

I'm also old and have a family and work a lot, and I just don't really know what's happening anymore. When we went out in Bushwick, we saw some local DJs/electronic artists in a little club and it was absurdly packed and seemed pretty alive.

I guess another thing I've noticed is that galleries tend to show artists from all over the US and world, and I'm guessing that's more true than it used to be. But that's also an internet-erasing-borders thing.

All cities are dead because culture travels faster through the Internet than it ever could geographically.

― treeship 2, Tuesday, February 6, 2018 3:28 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is pretty otm

it's all about the rust belt, my friend

we eat the cheeses here too

they are artisanal

our cities are the envy of all, their livability is primo

Here's how I think about New York, after my last visit there last summer:

New York is good and the only actual large city in America on the metric of everything existing there. Big cities are the ones where there is everything; you can tell Seattle is a small city because there are things that are not here.

New York is bad in that it smells of garbage. In the summer, hot garbage.

If more American cities grow to populations in the millions, New York will be more dead by comparison due declining uniqueness. Is this going to happen? Who knows.

i kinda want to leave, but i have a job i like okay and an unusually fortuitous living situation. there's no real reason for me to be here; i don't partake of the cultural opportunities available

it'll probably be the subway that finally drives me away

NYC: where if you can make it there as a successful artist, you can also have a successful time crowdfunding your medical bills.

Telecommuting will finish it off.

Less of a joke, not as dead as San Francisco?

Feels like people have been waiting for a rust belt/flyover city to take over since our traditional metropolises are more 'playground for the rich' than ever but I still don't hear kids looking to move to Columbus or Pittsburgh.

Have the media decided where the New Portland is?

There was a Tooze tweet recently, where he showed stats on how professional actors in the USA, vastly outnumber coal miners. I forgot by much, but it was significantly much.

I do hear murmurings about ppl aspiring to move to Pittsburgh, Detroit, Denver, a few others

According to @BLS_gov and @TheEconomist there are 51,200 people employed as coal miners in the US v. 785k in 1920. In 2017 there are more florists, actors and personal fitness instructors than miners. pic.twitter.com/m913tHokI2

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) January 2, 2018

Less of a joke, not as dead as San Francisco?

Feels like people have been waiting for a rust belt/flyover city to take over since our traditional metropolises are more 'playground for the rich' than ever but I still don't hear kids looking to move to Columbus or Pittsburgh.

― louise ck (milo z), Tuesday, February 6, 2018 6:27 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hear rumblings about Pittsburgh now and then. Also tons of my friends moved to Philly over the years and it did seem to be producing bands at a good clip for a while.

And no one talks about how many administrative assistant, secretarial and receptionist jobs were lost in NYC due to automation, because... women, a lot of woc. Breadwinners for their families. Fuck coal miners and their sooty tears.

I’m moving back to new york soon bc of my job but it’s not a nice place to live.

I still have my apartment in Astoria. But I really don't want to go back. I dread having to deal with the subway.

The subway is inexcusably unpleasant

i get more anxious/aggro in nyc in my old age. i don't know what it is. impatient. people bug me more. i think its just a case of the olds. i will always love the city though. in general. i've loved hanging out there my whole life.

it really is me being set in my ways. we stayed in brooklyn one summer with the kids and i seriously didn't want to leave the hotel room. get on a subway to go to a museum in manhattan? kill me now.

Everything here is comically more stressful than any other place.

I car commute to the suburbs now and it's glorious to not be taking the subway anymore

Why is the ceiling always dripping down there?

Second and third tier cities could attract people by just showing how messed up the MTA is in their promo material.

I haven't lived in nyc full time for almost two years now. I miss it, but I really don't miss it. Just the thought of having to take the subway to work gives me anxiety.

Part of me really regrets accepting another job here. As a teen my dream was living here but it’s not that fun.

NYC misses Yerac and Znarf

Fix the subway and get rid of GOP madness and I am there!

fuck the subway, i drive most places now. and when i do take the subway it's in the middle of the day.
sorry can't do anything about the GOP.

Do you have to go in and out of manhattan a lot or no?

I remember taking the subway maybe 1-2 times a month when I worked in Williamsburg. It was the best. My tweety truck got sold like 3 years ago.

i've honestly not experienced the subway horrors that many have, but i will say that the subway is nearly unusable on nights and weekends

just not enough trains

I want to get myself to love it again.

Not the subway—the city

The last job I had there, I almost had a breakdown every time I took the subway. I would sometimes using the plodding R so I wouldn't have to deal with the insaneness of the 4,5,6 during rush hour. That train really has the worst people to be stuck with in the tunnel.

I do drive into the city regularly. Many mornings I drive in and drop my wife off at work and then drive home. It helps that we live near the Manhattan Bridge and her office is in chinatown. We also might drive in and park for any number of special events.

it's very dubious. it's based on asking google maps for directions with an automated script. if you believe it then people are crossing the Brooklyn bridge at over 100mph at night.

there are only a couple scenarios where there's any difference. data doesn't seem that wild
midtown is packed today as usual

Anecdotall but I drive from queens to Brooklyn last night around 6 (to see Chris Fleming!) and bqe traffic from metropolitan to Wylie to Hillary was brutal. That’s always a tough stretch but seemed extreme last night at that time and wondered if it involved people avoiding traveling down the west side o Manhattan.

you mean wythe/tillary?

that stretch of the BQE is definitely the gauntlet. i've seen the line at exit 31 (wythe) be, i dunno, 20+ cars long? and of course with cars divebombing in at the last second at the exit itself to muscle their way in

idk if that stretch makes sense as a manhattan avoiding route, though. for that to be true there would have to be cars who would travel over the wburg bridge and back over the brooklyn bridge, who are not doing that anymore.

Fwiw 6th ave had cars but was moving easily today even w 49 and 50 blocked off bc of the tree still

I'm on Lex around 30th today and it does seem quieter on the avenue. In between stop lights there's empty blocks with only a few cars waiting at the light.

Xxp That’s our exit. It’s always a shitshow.

Yes I meant tillary. On phone with eyes dilated from Dr visit!

Wythe is always terrible but this was amongst the worse I’ve seen. Maybe I’m generally not driving that direction that time of a weekday.

I feel like I remember when wythe got bad though. People can argue about “working class” outer borough car owners but outer borough traffics massive increase is not coincidental ro the gentrification and “hipster/yuppiefication” of the outer boroughs and yes present company included.

for sure, the situation at that exit is mostly people in williamsburg/fort greene/clinton hill who bought cars during covid (also me)

Ayyo Ghost
Can’t feel my face
Windy as fuck

For sure for sure. Really helping me quit smoking though.

Took me about 20 flicks of my bic but was still able to light a bowl in the wind. pro level shit

Wythe ave is my exit on the BQE too, it's been awful for at least the last ten years.

calstars u are my hero

what you are seeing is Eric Adams taking questions from reporters while getting his eyebrows done in Corona, Queens pic.twitter.com/iU4P8wp8cs

— Olivia Reingold (@Olivia_Reingold) January 10, 2025

https://www.amny.com/news/lirr-and-metro-north-congestion-pricing/

lirr and meteor north see increase in ridership post congestion pricing

the same was reported by your mom

Nice.

also has new york been ruined by congestion pricing yet?

https://new.mta.info/press-release/mta-releases-preliminary-traffic-and-transit-data-first-work-week-under-congestion

https://www.amny.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/congestion-pricing-traffic-bar-chart-january-2025.jpg?resize=1200,813

graph is from this story https://www.amny.com/nyc-transit/congestion-pricing-mta-traffic-declines-january-2025/

it's real

starting to believe the thing that happened in every other city on earth that introduced congestion charging might be happening here.

i'm sad i don't have a reason to be in manhattan during weekdays right now ... is anyone of manhattan workday experience ~feeling~ the difference?

No

could be wishful thinking but I'm in midtown and it feels quiet to me. Flatbush ave on the other hand feels worse than ever.

Yes xp

Trying to explain to a dipshit contractor yesterday that getting cars off the road helps HIM get around easier in his big-ass gear truck but all he could talk about is how it costs 9 bux to drive to brooklyn in his partner’s car then 9 bux to drive back into manhattan in his different vehicle and i sort of gave up bc he’s the person who should be paying 20 bux each time for bad decision making.

i thought it was a once daily charge?

sounds like he's driving out of the area, then picking up a work truck and driving back in

there is currently an unattended tractor trailer without a truck or a driver in the bus lane on 34rd street between 5th and 6th causing chaos. some things never change.

Yeah dingus is complaining about two cars

9 dollars is pitiful anyway. in london it’s like 20 bucks

Motorcycles being only half of whatever the car charge is, it could still make financial sense for me to scooter to the FiDi in nicer weather and at least getting home on the BB would take less than 90 minutes! It's usually free-flowing in the morning but standstill at 6pm because of the cursed Tillary exit.

Ban all private cars

have a new gig w an office in soho and the lack of car traffic around here is stunning. it’s like every day is december 30 or something

That’s because soho died 10 years ago

eric adams is the lowest of the low. the worst, most corrupt, self-interested, ineffectual politician of my lifetime and that's saying a lot

rikers island should be abolished, but not before adams gets to spend a little time there

seeing lots of posts telling people to register as democrat ASAP so they can vote him out in the primary. I live in Queens so Ramos has been on our radar.

Adams is shameless
Should be voted out

he should be removed by the governor, she can do that

if she had any kind of political instincts or spine, she would

There’s a special place in hell for politicians who abuse their position and the public’s trust

Z Mamdani is K I L L I N G it on Tiktok and presumably his other socials too. Idk if that means I'll vote for him for mayor in whatever spot, but his comms team ought to get some very good offers out of it either way.

I am digging all this snow

Could you dig it off of my sidewalk?

Actually this periodic light snowfall has disguised the fact that the last three winters have been cumulatively the least snowy in city history.

trump to nyc: lol. lmao.

score one for calstars

https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/02/21/crosstown-bus-speeds-up-congestion-pricing/

buses are now up to 5% faster!