I woke up this morning and read this. My note and the comments. I never read the comments. It made me feel good. Read on.
6 votes
I much prefer NYC in the 80’s then now. Its been homogenized and is a suburbanized version of its former glory. Your weekly unemployment check equalled your monthly rent so you had time to find a job that you really wanted. There were no chains, no Starbucks, and you had real NYC merchants the kind who would give you change for a dollar, accept a package for you and didn’t know from its against store policy. Many owned and lived upstairs in the buildings their business occupied. There were barber shops, hardware stores, diners, bookstores, etc. It was their livelihood and not merely a job job. Rents were affordable. There were fewer tourists and traffic moved better. Sure it wasn’t as safe as it is today but todays city is for big box stores without the flavor or the old city. Read Joseph Mitchell, and the wonderful characters he found for his New Yorker columns. You can’t afford to be a classic NYC merchant. All those places are gone, There are a few in the ends of the city but most have been replaced by Starbucks, juice places, etc. You could buy an apt for one or two times your salary, not the five or ten times it takes today. And people were different then, we were all in it together not competing for the limited resources of todays NYC. People weren’t scared of their own shadow like today. There was a greater sense of adventure, of the possible, and greater risk taking, today people are too scared to do anything which isn’t politically correct. I feel sorry for the sailors who come into the city for fleet week. Hearing stories of TImes Square imagine how disappointed to find out that its now like back home with Starbucks, Olive Garden and Red Lobster. Where are the girls, They have decamped to the outer boroughs. Its turned into a rich, boring sterile city. Manhattan is dead at night north of 14th Street the nightlife having decamped to lower east side, Brooklyn, etc. Soon they will be gone too. Too many of us are on a treadmill just staying afloat. There are too many people in too small a space. I love the energy of NYC but I love the older one, this one is too artificial.
22 Mar
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Adi Kurian: Classic older person drastic overstatement…

Leonard Kim 7 votes
Whoa, this was like watching a movie!
Thu
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Catherine Beale: Such a compliment coming from you Leonardo…

Thomas Johnson 6 votes
It sounds to me like there is a book in there somewhere.
13 Feb
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Catherine Beale: 🙂

Mike Staks 4 votes
Beautifully written.
26 Feb
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Wayne Allen Sallee 4 votes
As I was reading this, I could not help but think of a friend from Virginia who was in NYC with us for the first time (us being a writer’s group). Her surprise was like yours in many ways. She saw a homeless man on a steam grate and police arresting someone on the same street. We didn’t even blink. I’m in Chicago now and haven’t been back to Manhattan since 1999.
And for anyone reading my comment, it doesn’t matter where you live, never leave anything in full view in your car. Someone will want it. Some things will never change.
16 Feb
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Patrick DiJusto 4 votes
I wish I could upvote this multiple times. I wish I could read a longer version in the New Yorker. I wish an agent would arrange a six figure deal for a full-length book.
24 May
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Ferdinand Brueggemann 2 votes
Thanks!!! That’s like a piece from The New Yorker.
Fri
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David Schwartz 1 vote
Reminded me of growing up there in the 1980’s, in Park Slope no less.
Fri
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Raphael Diop 1 vote
Very beautifully written! It should be a book and be amongst the New York times best sellers
5 Oct
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Ron Judd 2 votes
Well written with style and pace.
4 Oct
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Beelzebub Jones 1 vote
i always think that a truly great vacation would be to go to new york city for the weekend in the summer of 1979 and i’m a new yorker. your story reminded me there would be a lot of great times to go visit. thank you.
Fri
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Siddharth Singh 1 vote
you used your journal for writing this? btw, superb!