So fun to revisit that exchange from the perspective of 2024. I’m STILL sore at the people who left NYC during the pandemic bc it “wasn’t fun anymore.”
Whoever thinks New York is “dead forever” is a bloody fool.
I’m a fourth-generation native New Yorker. Between all four, we have seen worse.
Great-Grandpa and Grandpa had to agree with sweatshops, Tammany corruption, piles of horse manure in the streets, and unsanitary tenements.
Dad grew up amid the Great Depression, with his family on the edge of losing its drug store and apartment. German-American Bund bullyboys, protected by Catholic Irish Coughlinite cops, beat up little old Jewish men and women as they emerged from synagogues. That was followed by an unimaginably bloody World War and a violent 1943 riot in Harlem.
I grew up in the 1970s. Never mind the big hair and polyester clothes, Saturday Night Fever, and Sunday Morning Social Diseases (and regrets), we also had a bankrupt, filthy city, a massive 24-hour blackout, corporations fleeing New York, and the “Summer of Sam.”
We overcame all of that. And more.
This jerk who is fleeing to Miami can stay there and join his pal DeSantis.
As for me, New York — and London — will always be “the mystic dirt of home.”
And the last I looked, Miami still has only two World Series wins. New York’s four teams combined (Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Giants) have 35.
Nobody was prepared for COVID, and we're going to feel the effects for a long time. In my local school district, it was something like 50% of kids in the schools reported having suicidal thoughts at some point, and it seems nuts since we live in an amazing beach community with beautiful weather all year long. The disruption was huge, and the kids were (and still are to an extent) mourning the loss of their normal lives. This disease is unlike anything any of us have seen in our lifetimes, or even in my parents lifetimes (who died 10+ years ago in their mid 70s). Almost zero living people have any context for life during a pandemic, as the last one was the Spanish flu in the early 1900s. Even worse, social media has trained us to have a 1/10th of a second attention span and demand instant gratification, and we get a lot of stupid talk about things nobody has the experience or knowledge to understand. Any time someone gives a blanket statement of "____ is dead," I always look at it as an emotional statement of frustration and loss. We say a lot of words, but frequently the words have nothing to do with the actual sentiment of a person, who is reflecting on a loss or a desire for something to be different as it is. It's part of aging to learn to adapt and move on, and not get stuck in the low points in life. As always, things continue on, but differently. It's like the famous quote, "You can't go home again."
Thanks for helping keep NYC warm for the rest of us, or loosening its jar top for us, or whatever. Personally, I don’t get up to New York much, but I don’t want to live in a USA with no NYC.
A wise friend once said “I cant complain there’s no more cookies, I ate and ate until the jar was empty” and that my friends is how we should be about life. You see we are spoiled, in the good way, have you ever seen home alone in a theater with a live orchestra on christmas eve? its magic that I wish one day I’ll experience, and if I ever find out there will be no more then I will be the one bootstrapping and putting it out there for others, because someone did it for us and I am glad to say I have experienced magic thanks to them and the ones that come after us will experience it thanks to ourselves.
So fun to revisit that exchange from the perspective of 2024. I’m STILL sore at the people who left NYC during the pandemic bc it “wasn’t fun anymore.”
I loved Jerry Seinfeld's essay. Thanks for bringing it back to our attention.
New York really started going downhill when Peter Stuyvesant paved the cow paths.
Whoever thinks New York is “dead forever” is a bloody fool.
I’m a fourth-generation native New Yorker. Between all four, we have seen worse.
Great-Grandpa and Grandpa had to agree with sweatshops, Tammany corruption, piles of horse manure in the streets, and unsanitary tenements.
Dad grew up amid the Great Depression, with his family on the edge of losing its drug store and apartment. German-American Bund bullyboys, protected by Catholic Irish Coughlinite cops, beat up little old Jewish men and women as they emerged from synagogues. That was followed by an unimaginably bloody World War and a violent 1943 riot in Harlem.
I grew up in the 1970s. Never mind the big hair and polyester clothes, Saturday Night Fever, and Sunday Morning Social Diseases (and regrets), we also had a bankrupt, filthy city, a massive 24-hour blackout, corporations fleeing New York, and the “Summer of Sam.”
We overcame all of that. And more.
This jerk who is fleeing to Miami can stay there and join his pal DeSantis.
As for me, New York — and London — will always be “the mystic dirt of home.”
And the last I looked, Miami still has only two World Series wins. New York’s four teams combined (Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Giants) have 35.
Nobody was prepared for COVID, and we're going to feel the effects for a long time. In my local school district, it was something like 50% of kids in the schools reported having suicidal thoughts at some point, and it seems nuts since we live in an amazing beach community with beautiful weather all year long. The disruption was huge, and the kids were (and still are to an extent) mourning the loss of their normal lives. This disease is unlike anything any of us have seen in our lifetimes, or even in my parents lifetimes (who died 10+ years ago in their mid 70s). Almost zero living people have any context for life during a pandemic, as the last one was the Spanish flu in the early 1900s. Even worse, social media has trained us to have a 1/10th of a second attention span and demand instant gratification, and we get a lot of stupid talk about things nobody has the experience or knowledge to understand. Any time someone gives a blanket statement of "____ is dead," I always look at it as an emotional statement of frustration and loss. We say a lot of words, but frequently the words have nothing to do with the actual sentiment of a person, who is reflecting on a loss or a desire for something to be different as it is. It's part of aging to learn to adapt and move on, and not get stuck in the low points in life. As always, things continue on, but differently. It's like the famous quote, "You can't go home again."
Thanks for helping keep NYC warm for the rest of us, or loosening its jar top for us, or whatever. Personally, I don’t get up to New York much, but I don’t want to live in a USA with no NYC.
A wise friend once said “I cant complain there’s no more cookies, I ate and ate until the jar was empty” and that my friends is how we should be about life. You see we are spoiled, in the good way, have you ever seen home alone in a theater with a live orchestra on christmas eve? its magic that I wish one day I’ll experience, and if I ever find out there will be no more then I will be the one bootstrapping and putting it out there for others, because someone did it for us and I am glad to say I have experienced magic thanks to them and the ones that come after us will experience it thanks to ourselves.
Lifehack: learn a magic trick