My New York.

If you look at the background for this blog you’ll see a picture of my New York.

There was a period of several months where I was running a studio and when I looked out my window across 8th Avenue that was my view. It was the New York that I grew up with in the seventies, a New York of porno theaters, peep shows, topless joints and adult book stores spread throughout the Times Square area right up against the theater district.

New York was way, way different back then.

People who have come into New York in the last two or three decades don’t have the slightest connection to that New York.

My New York had places like Colony Records which was in the Brill Building, Downstairs Records on 43 St or even Tower Records which came much later.

It was a different New York to be sure and one where as a very young man at the ripe old age of 22 I drove a yellow cab at night for several years.

 

I’ve spoken about this before but...

Anyone who is under a certain age has no idea of New York, what it was and how much it has changed through the years.

New York in the ensuing years became something of an attraction, a Disneyfied version of New York that Millennials all flocked to, followed by Gen Z. So safe! So much fun! Such an adventure exemplified by shows like Sex in the City! WOW! FUN!

That New York is going away and the New York of my youth is coming back with a vengence but people don’t really know what’s in store for them yet.

The New York I grew up in had parts of the city like the Flower District, the Fashion District, Little Italy, Chinatown, the Lower East side, Yorkville, Spanish Harlem, the Upper West Side, Greenwich Village and Chelsea. All those neighborhoods were distinct in the sense that they were built around industries or ethnic populations.

The gentrification of Manhattan if you could really even call it that destroyed all of that and instead of a series of villages the island of Manhattan became the environs of tourists and the extremely wealthy.

Covid 19 changed the game, it changed the game in a way that it had never confronted before...

People discovered you can have folks work remotely, people living in the city saw the unrest and violence going on around them while leaders stood by idle and decided it was a good time to leave. These are people who are not going to be coming back.

After 9-11 Manhattan was recovering from a deep wound but there was an urgency to be a part of the vitality of the city. Of course, the city was way, way more affordable back then. That‘s simply not the case today.

Better still, businesses that were a part of the vital makeup of the city just have wilted on the vine after repeated shutdowns meant there was no way for them to cover their costs. Those businesses aren’t coming back either.If you’ve got people who are living in the city of all strata leaving, you’ve got small business owners leaving, you’ve got offices realizing that they can cut their overhead and don’t need the same amount of square footage they used because they have more people working remotely that’s not a recipe for good things down the road. Push it out to the fact that brick and mortar stores are already facing a new reality and that means further loss of jobs and tax revenue. You can tax the rich but they’ll just leave as well, why stay?

Then there’s defunding the Police... that should make things even better with rising shootings and crime.

People forget before Rudy Giuliani became Mayor of New York City, people said that the problems of New York City COULD NOT BE FIXED! It took eight years of Giuliani followed by Michael Bloomberg continuing those policies that bought us a different New York and it was amazing how quickly Bill DiBlasio took all of that apart.

Yep, that New York of my youth is coming back but I get the sense it’s actually going to make that New York look better than what’s in store for people today.