[BRIEF NOTE] New York, New York
The recent reasonably enjoyable and very successful Sex and the City movie is famously embedded in New York City: its architecture, its celebrity and high-end consumer culture, its entire environment. That's why I was surprised to come across an article by Emily Nussbaum ("Sarah Jessica Parker Would Like a Few Words With Carrie Bradshaw) in New York Magazine where the actor portraying Carrie Bradshaw mourns her show's role in changing New York City.
Still, she says, her New York, like that of many New Yorkers, is one that is no longer quite there. "You know, when I arrived in the city in 1976, New York was financially a wreck," she remembers. "But to me it’s the New York that Matthew [Broderick] and I literally try to find every day of our lives. It was the best place in the world. It was literature. It promised everything. And for someone who loved food and smells and stimulation, who was rocked to sleep by the sound of taxis--well, there’s just so much money now, and the city is so affluent, and all the colors, all the shops, the look of a street from block to block is just terribly absent of distinguishing coffee shops, bodegas. All of that stuff that made it possible to live in New York is gone." Even Brooklyn is "very chic" now, she adds. "I guess there are places in Queens that are affordable."
Christian Peralta at Planetizen is more succinct.
With its portrait of glamorous living in Manhattan, some New Yorkers can't help but blame the television series for fueling the city's gentrification. Even the show's star, Sarah Jessica Parker, laments Manhattan's loss of 'grit'.
Advertise on Planetizen"Sarah Jessica Parker is bemoaning the loss of a city that many say she helped push out.
As trendy bars and boutiques take over Manhattan's corner bodegas and laundermats, the famously stiletto-heeled "Sex and the City" star laments the loss of grit for glamour in New York.
"I don't know if you do this with your husband," Parker told New York magazine in an interview that hits newsstands Monday. "But say one of us is walking down the street, I'll call him and say, 'You know, the Laundromat is closed!' And he'll say, 'What?' I'll be like, 'The Laundromat at 11th and W. Fourth St. is closed!'"
In the article, titled "Sarah Jessica Parker Would Like a Few Words with Carrie Bradshaw," Parker tells writer Emily Nussbaum that she and her equally famous husband, actor Matthew Broderick, keep a running tab on changes in their West Village neighborhood.
An actress-turned-fashion brand, Parker acknowledges that people blame her and the hit HBO series for the near-complete, high-end gentrification of the West Village."That's your fault!" Broderick says when he spots "a thong poking up from low-slung jeans," Nussbaum recounts."
The above is quite an unfair criticism of the show. A New Yorker expatriate I talked to today blamed the economic boom of the 1980s and Guiliani's sanitization of the city for those changes. Certainly the show had nothing to do with what seems to be a growing trend of growing income disparities within New York City's metropolitan area, at least as reported in this post by Larry Littlefield at Room 8 New York Politics, apparently making the old core of the city too expensive for lower- and even some middle-income people. Can New Yorkers please tell me that the old culture of New York City isn't disappearing? I would like to visit it again, and I do hope that the months-old mention by lord_whimsy of the decision of some New Yorkers to commute from the affordable bedroom community of Philadelphia is only an exaggeration.
I want New York City. It isn't as if I haven't tried to prep for a long time--I even began reading the New Yorker in my early teen years. Toronto's wonderful, but New York City is one of the most important world cities, easily the major cultural engine for all of northeastern North America, sadly far surpassing Toronto. (I only began to read New York Magazine after I moved to Toronto, but that reflects entirely different centre/periphery rivalries. Perhaps I'll touch on that later.) Call all this the desire of a northern barbarian to be accepted into the heart of things, but I can't be blamed for wanting to leave a place where the signature musical has the lyric "Anne of Green Gables/never change/I love you just this way.) That periodical's high quality aside, I certainly wouldn't have had to rely on The Island Magazine. insofar as local publications are concerned. I wanted more.
Could New York City go, transformed into a polished über-metropolis where everything is behind glass? If that's the case, does anywhere else--Toronto, say--stand a chance?
Still, she says, her New York, like that of many New Yorkers, is one that is no longer quite there. "You know, when I arrived in the city in 1976, New York was financially a wreck," she remembers. "But to me it’s the New York that Matthew [Broderick] and I literally try to find every day of our lives. It was the best place in the world. It was literature. It promised everything. And for someone who loved food and smells and stimulation, who was rocked to sleep by the sound of taxis--well, there’s just so much money now, and the city is so affluent, and all the colors, all the shops, the look of a street from block to block is just terribly absent of distinguishing coffee shops, bodegas. All of that stuff that made it possible to live in New York is gone." Even Brooklyn is "very chic" now, she adds. "I guess there are places in Queens that are affordable."
Christian Peralta at Planetizen is more succinct.
With its portrait of glamorous living in Manhattan, some New Yorkers can't help but blame the television series for fueling the city's gentrification. Even the show's star, Sarah Jessica Parker, laments Manhattan's loss of 'grit'.
Advertise on Planetizen"Sarah Jessica Parker is bemoaning the loss of a city that many say she helped push out.
As trendy bars and boutiques take over Manhattan's corner bodegas and laundermats, the famously stiletto-heeled "Sex and the City" star laments the loss of grit for glamour in New York.
"I don't know if you do this with your husband," Parker told New York magazine in an interview that hits newsstands Monday. "But say one of us is walking down the street, I'll call him and say, 'You know, the Laundromat is closed!' And he'll say, 'What?' I'll be like, 'The Laundromat at 11th and W. Fourth St. is closed!'"
In the article, titled "Sarah Jessica Parker Would Like a Few Words with Carrie Bradshaw," Parker tells writer Emily Nussbaum that she and her equally famous husband, actor Matthew Broderick, keep a running tab on changes in their West Village neighborhood.
An actress-turned-fashion brand, Parker acknowledges that people blame her and the hit HBO series for the near-complete, high-end gentrification of the West Village."That's your fault!" Broderick says when he spots "a thong poking up from low-slung jeans," Nussbaum recounts."
The above is quite an unfair criticism of the show. A New Yorker expatriate I talked to today blamed the economic boom of the 1980s and Guiliani's sanitization of the city for those changes. Certainly the show had nothing to do with what seems to be a growing trend of growing income disparities within New York City's metropolitan area, at least as reported in this post by Larry Littlefield at Room 8 New York Politics, apparently making the old core of the city too expensive for lower- and even some middle-income people. Can New Yorkers please tell me that the old culture of New York City isn't disappearing? I would like to visit it again, and I do hope that the months-old mention by lord_whimsy of the decision of some New Yorkers to commute from the affordable bedroom community of Philadelphia is only an exaggeration.
I want New York City. It isn't as if I haven't tried to prep for a long time--I even began reading the New Yorker in my early teen years. Toronto's wonderful, but New York City is one of the most important world cities, easily the major cultural engine for all of northeastern North America, sadly far surpassing Toronto. (I only began to read New York Magazine after I moved to Toronto, but that reflects entirely different centre/periphery rivalries. Perhaps I'll touch on that later.) Call all this the desire of a northern barbarian to be accepted into the heart of things, but I can't be blamed for wanting to leave a place where the signature musical has the lyric "Anne of Green Gables/never change/I love you just this way.) That periodical's high quality aside, I certainly wouldn't have had to rely on The Island Magazine. insofar as local publications are concerned. I wanted more.
Click to viewCould New York City go, transformed into a polished über-metropolis where everything is behind glass? If that's the case, does anywhere else--Toronto, say--stand a chance?