I was walking around the city the other day and maybe it’s just me or maybe it’s because I like things I used to like and dislike new things I don’t like (though I will say I do like new things I do like), but it just seemed to me that New York has really changed.
Right?
Like, you know what I mean, right? Like . . . it’s different.
Right?
The Village. My God. The Village has changed. It used to be this . . . it used to be this . . . PLACE. You know? It used to be this place where people would go. And sit. And talk. And eat. And it had these buildings, you know? And stores. And the stores would be inside the buildings. And people would go inside the buildings and buy things from the stores if the buildings contained stores they wanted to buy things from. Or people would go inside buildings that had stores and not buy things from the stores if the stores didn’t have things they wanted to buy. Or—get this—people would go inside the buildings and not even think about buying anything at all if those buildings didn’t contain stores!
Well, my friends, all of that is gone now. JUST GONE. The Village has lost something. You can’t even get a cup of coffee in the Village anymore unless you go into a building with a store that sells coffee.
And Jazz. When I first moved to New York City, you could listen to great jazz in two places that sort of come to mind and twenty other places that don’t come to mind and will never come to mind because I don’t know what or where they were and I’ll never find out either of those things, not because I don’t listen to jazz, and not because I dislike jazz, it’s really just because I’ve never gotten around to listening to jazz and probably won’t before I die. And now? Good luck. Now you can still probably listen to jazz in all those places but it’s different and the people who don’t say it’s different are wrong and need to OPEN THEIR EYES.
See, New York City used to be this tough and gritty place. There was a time, believe it or not, when you could turn a corner in Manhattan and say, “Boy, this corner is gritty and tough and I like that.” Fast-forward to now, when you can turn a corner in Manhattan and say, “Boy, this corner isn’t gritty and tough and I do not like that.”
Because let me tell you something, folks, all the places that used to be gritty and tough aren’t gritty and tough, and most new places aren’t gritty and tough except for new places that are gritty and tough, and some old places that were gritty and tough are still sort of gritty and tough, and some places that never used to be gritty and tough still aren’t gritty and tough, and other places that could be gritty and tough may or may not end up being gritty and tough and WHAT I’M SAYING IS, PEOPLE: New York used to be this gritty and tough place.
That was gritty.
And tough.
And where has that gone? What the hell happened?
Giuliani.
SoHo—MY GOD. SoHo has been overtaken by things that aren’t the things that had overtaken it before the new things overtook them. And CHELSEA. Chelsea used to be this place where artists and musicians and singers and songwriters and playwrights and actors and shops and newsstands and pizza and hot dogs and pretzels and prostitutes and Black people and white people and gay people and sights and smells and Pacino and the thump thump thump of the subway and the bars and the record stores and the bands and the newsstands and yeah.
The PLAZA. My God—the Plaza. The grande dame herself. People who have just moved to New York have no idea about the Plaza and what it used to be and what it used to mean. The Plaza used to be . . . it used to be this . . . it used to be this . . . this . . . this . . . honestly, I’m not really sure what the Plaza used to be. I’ve never been to the Plaza. But I’m guessing it used to be very good and now I’m guessing it’s either very bad or not as good. Or maybe it’s just as good. I don’t know. I shouldn’t have brought it up, I guess.
Woody Allen is older. That’s for sure. Cancel me for saying so.
And lower Manhattan. Jesus Christ. What has become of lower Manhattan? It’s like a mall now, especially the places where you go inside one location and there are multiple locations within that location where you can buy things. Lower Manhattan is done. One World Trade Center! That never used to be there, and now it’s there. Why is it there? No one knows.
And that finally brings me to the people. The people are just different. Right? Or maybe they are the exact same people I walk past every single day and I just don’t remember what everyone looks like because I don’t know everyone personally so when I see them it doesn’t really register. It’s not that, though. It’s not. Or maybe it’s because New York attracts these people who are new and they filter in with the people who are old in an ever-repeating process of people moving in and out of the city.
It’s not that, either.
It’s this: people who live here now fucking suck.
They’re not gritty.
Or tough.
Except for the ones who are. ♦
