Ot: Nyc '77

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by Tony T

Riding in NYC is just for commuting.

Not really. If you're an adrenaline junky, there's a lot of thrills. A lot. Where else can you ride faster than most car traffic, dodging all sorts of stuff. Really does favor the sprinters.

[Mr. Pink]

Originally Posted by OtayBW

I grew up in the suburbs of NYC in the 60s-70s and moved to rural Tennessee for 10 yrs followed by 12 more years in the SW Virginia Highlands....and then I moved away to the boonies! The city definately has a ton going for it and is interesting for me for short visits, but I just do not get the concept of living there, and even less the notion of actually riding there. Riding in the city is completely counter to most all of the reasons that I ride: fresh air, peace and beauty of nature, solitude, fast/windy roads, hills, seeing new places. Riding in the city? I just don't 'get it', but I don't have to.

The reason people live there is to be as close as possible to their very interesting and well paying jobs. The people who work for a living, I mean. Not the trust fund hipsters.

[beeatnik]

Originally Posted by velofinds

Edit: this one by RHCP also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwlogyj7nFE

Yep, not a white face (other than Kiedis) in that streetscape.

RHCP achieving mainstream MTV status confirms the existence of Satan.

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by beeatnik

That the East Coast is so weird!

Weirdness is both relative and regional.

Every time I read an edition of The Hollywood Reporter I can't fathom the kind of lifestyle and consumerism of West Coast elites. Heck, my bubble is the same as your bubble, only different!

[johnmdesigner]

One last story then I'm out.

I worked in an advertising agency in the early 80's. Cocaine use in the creative fields was pretty rampant at the time. My boss was pretty addicted as was the owner and his two sons. One of the salesmen was the main supplier to the office. Funny if you were a grunt working there you never had to spend money on drugs, it always found its way to you. Favors were asked with an enticing line left on the drafting table. My boss was never in the office after Wednesdays and so the secretaries would go in his office and run their finger around his desk drawer looking for scraps.
I was working the art department turning my boss’s scribbles into reality. There was an army of illustrators and artists working there but organizing a presentation was sometimes difficult. And his scribbles were, well, up for interpretation. Sometimes I would arrive to find a fresh pile of scribbles on my desk only to have these “reinterpreted” later in the day after the salesman had arrived in the office. The amount of work he produced was unbelievable and it amazed me that he could still get up in front of corporate heads and make a presentation. He really could sell you anything if he decided he was going to sell it to you.
I worked freelance for interior designers on the side back then and they were just as wacked. Creative meetings always started with a treat. A field trip to a celebrity’s home to take measurements offered a few more treats. I never understood how anything got done but somehow it always did. I knew several designers who lost their businesses due to their addictions.
Christmas time the boss’s son came into my office with one of those plastic 35 mm film cans, took the lid off and proceeded to pour a small Mt. Fuji of coke on my desk. That is a LOT of coke. “Merry Christmas”!
We had a fabulous photo studio in this warehouse and we spent weekends and nights (as we were awake most of the time) taking pictures or roaming the streets in Hell’s Kitchen with our cameras. A bike ride on a hot summer night in Central Park was usually suggested. No need to worry about the cops because they wouldn’t set foot in the park and you could usually outsprint the muggers and the zombies standing in the middle of the road. Those evenings we rode with a large well sharpened straight screwdriver in the back pocket.
Those were the days but as with such things you either gave them up or they killed you. A few people I knew didn’t make it. I finally had to work about 5 days and night’s straight setting up stores for a job in California and collapsed from exhaustion. I came back to NY, quit my job and gave it up.

[paredown]

Originally Posted by johnmdesigner

It's not really necessary to treat me like a potential suicide victim. I can assure you I am quite happy with my life.

Just to drift off topic for a moment;
During the first Gulf War, I was a businessman in Paris working for an American company. It was difficult being introduced in that manner because the French people I encountered had a rather low opinion of Americans. Even though we all came from NYC my bosses treated the French in like manner, blowing them off as insignificant. They ended up being hated for the stereotype the French had created for them.
I tried a different approach. I mentioned the fine meal I had had the night before. The magnificent buildings I had walked passed on the way to the meeting. My hopes to see more. They warmed to me because I wasn’t what they had expected.
What is my point? Well, if I hadn’t lived in NYC among peoples from all nations I probably wouldn’t have been able to see the good in everyone and be able to express it. I didn’t have to speak their language - they just made me feel welcome. That’s what living here has given me. It’s a shame that not everyone in America is able to experience that. And the fact that that aspect of NYC is slowly being swept away is distressing to me.

We had similar experiences in Germany--starting with selecting a house to rent. They showed us all these god-awful huge houses (I suppose the German equivalent of McMansions)--"You Americans like big houses' they'd say emphatically. Then we chose the smallest of what they showed us because it was beautiful, and it was 'You're not typical Americans'. My German teacher was so surprised that we made German friends and socialized with them--very few of her American students lived outside the English speaking ghettos, or engaged with the locals--certainly not to the point of doing day-trips with them.

Back to NYC--I remember visiting a friend's renovation project in Sunset Park in the '80s and being overwhelmed with the sights and sounds--multi-culti cacaphony. At first it was off-putting, but walking around the nabe to get supplies and it was clear--these were nice people trying (for the most part) to get ahead, and that energy and extroversion was cool.

I can see how people who come in to NY for a short visit can leave with a really negative impression of crowds, stank, high prices and a kind of mayhem, but if you are around for a while you get to see and appreciate other stuff--quiet corners, great encounters with people from somewhere else and a richness that is rare in American cities--in large part because white flight hollowed out other cities like Baltimore and left the buildings but not the energy...

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by paredown

I can see how people who come in to NY for a short visit can leave with a really negative impression of crowds, stank, high prices and a kind of mayhem, but if you are around for a while you get to see and appreciate other stuff--quiet corners, great encounters with people from somewhere else and a richness that is rare in American cities--

Momentary quiet and even solitude, as measured in square feet, is a treasured thing. But it happens and the quiet found amidst the din is a contrast in intensity that is truly remarkable. Central Park is a cherished refuge when the interludes can be found - in fact those moments are taken almost in a manner of "catch as catch can". On the weekends after a snow or rain, I walk over to the Park just to get the moments before they are gone.

[Climb01742]

The morning after a snowstorm you really can have Central Park to yourself. The beauty is remarkable, but the silence and solitude can be almost otherworldly. I always tried to run in the park before dawn after snows so I could see only my footsteps in the snow on the park drive. Beauty may be one of the city's best kept secrets.

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

The morning after a snowstorm you really can have Central Park to yourself. The beauty is remarkable, but the silence and solitude can be almost otherworldly. I always tried to run in the park before dawn after snows so I could see only my footsteps in the snow on the park drive. Beauty may be one of the city's best kept secrets.

Walking through the Park during a light snowfall is sublime. Catch the timing right and you get the crunch of fresh snow underfoot, almost as the bass notes, while the almost eerie silence is accented by the crystalline ting in the sound of snowflakes falling. The presentation is best at night with the snowflakes accentuated by the parklamps and the Manhattan skyline majestic as a backdrop.

I wouldn't join you for a run in the Park before dawn but would suggest brunch at a far less disciplined hour - we could go to La Mirabelle on W86th which is in the neighborhood and is very good.

Certainly NYC is not for everyone. And I don't mean to sound like advocating it as the end-all and be-all of places. But what I just described about the Park is free albeit the brunch followup is not.

Life, no matter where one lives, is what you make of it.

[54ny77]

This is awesome!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRv7G7WpOoU

[Mr. Pink]

Man, doing that without a helmet is pretty dumb.

[colker]

Technology created a world entirely different reality from 77. I am talking cell phones and social networking. We are in the outer space rght now. Earth is gone.

PS: NYC was culturally relevant once. Not anymore.

[johnmdesigner]

Originally Posted by colker

Technology created a world entirely different reality from 77. I am talking cell phones and social networking. We are in the outer space rght now. Earth is gone.

PS: NYC was culturally relevant once. Not anymore.

Sorry but that's just not true. Living in harmony and reality is more relevent than ever.

[binxnyrwarrsoul]

Originally Posted by johnmdesigner

Sometimes when the weather is nice I'll hop the train and go out to Jackson Heights. A place where perhaps 30 different nationalities exist in a rather limited area. Where you can have 30 different kinds of food. Where people from all over the world have (by necessity) learned to get along (more or less).
Walk into a Yemeni restaurant and sit down. There's no judgement. The're happy to serve you a meal. Invite them to sit down and join you and they'll tell you something you didn't know about their country. How they came to be here. How it was for them. They ask you about your life. What it's like to grow up here.
That is what is so special about living here. And why it's so important for it not to be replaced by a Starbucks.

Potd. Maybe year.

[colker]

Originally Posted by johnmdesigner

Sorry but that's just not true. Living in harmony and reality is more relevent than ever.

I said culturally relevant.. not more or less comfortable for anyone.
NYC in 77 was reinventing pop culture for the next 50 yrs.