New York, New York:
At the moment, I am sitting on a hotel bed in Manhattan looking at this:
I'm staying at the Standard hotel in the meatpacking district, which conceivably at some point packed meat, but which is now one of the poshest areas in Manhattan, in a distinct opposite to the "tenderloin" of San Francisco, where despite Twitter's optimistic tax-break-motivated office presence, you are still more likely to see a drug overdosed homeless guy in your path than anything that could be considered posh, even by the most hipstery hipster.
I can tell that it's posh because I had to push my way into an elevator jam-packed full of teenagers wearing a weird combination of clubbing dresses and pool gear as they headed up to the roof top bar at 4pm on a Saturday. As I was squeezed up against a screen in the elevator showing an animated image of Hitler burning in Hell, I reflected on two things: 1) I feel really old and 2) it is really easy to become posh. Rooftop bar + hipster staff + artsy hipster elevator statement = THE place to be in town.
The whole hotel, from the annoying upside down logo to the permed hair of the hipster front desk clerk, feels so marketing-contrived to me that I find it hard to believe that so many people think it's original - especially in New York. However, I have a clue as to why; In 10 minutes of standing out front waiting for a table at the popular hotel restaurant (which made my local brunch place in SF, Zazie, feel like it deserves 3 Michelin stars), I saw at least 25 guys wearing plaid shirts, "risky business" glasses and hipster beards. If fashion is an institution that embraces looking uniquely the same as everyone else, then I can see why New York is the center of fashion, and why having an animated video of Hitler in the elevator is "shocking" and hip. I just expected it to take more in New York to be unique.
Before I go on a riff about New York using one day of data, I need to set some context. In my mind, New York is truly one of the world's most advanced megacities, and it has long eluded me as a place I should know but for one reason or another, I never quite got the chance. I visited a couple times when I was a teenager, always driving in for a few hours with my uncle who lives in New Jersey, for a "city lite" experience - just enough to feel the overwhelming vastness that encompasses you when you pull up out of the crowded lincoln tunnel into the jungle of tall buildings, followed by a quick return to the quieter, easier suburbs of Wayne, New Jersey.
So, with that, the experience of fully immersing for a week in the life of this megacity is quite a novelty and I have all sorts of pre-conceived notions based on some combination of Sex and the City, The New Yorker, my 12-year-old obsession with broadway musicals and my 15-year-old 5-hour impression of this metropolis. In particular, I am curious how my previous impressions as an overwhelmed teen from the Sacramento suburbs will compare to my worldly current self having now lived in some arguably crazier crazy places in the world, like India, Singapore and San Francisco.
How much does the unique character of a city's craziness matter, versus craziness in general (fewer homeless people here than SF, traffic better than India, not as many tall buildings as Singapore). Will New York seem like the cluster-f*ck that I felt so many years ago? How much does acclimatizing to unique brands of local craziness prepare one for such a vast, diverse megacity? This week, it is my task to find out.
No comments:
Post a Comment