Now Playing at Reason.tv: The New York Sun's Alternative Take on the Big Apple

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[Warren]

Americans love to hate New York
I've been to NYC. I hate it because it's noisy crowded and every single person you meet works for the mafia.

[Cesar]

New York is only nice if you're independently wealthy. Otherwise the quality of life blows.

[John]

I agree Cesar. If I won the megamillions, I would definitly move to Park Avenue or Central Park West. As a normal person, not no but hell no.

[John]

I think Ms. Cattan is quite attractive in a geek chic kind of way.

[Cesar]

John I think for a working or middle class person the major cities of the Southeast--Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville etc have most of the northeast beat for quality of life and don't do that badly for their size in things like museums. A possible exception to that would be traffic since the public transit isn't that well developed.

[John]

Cesar,

I moved from Atlanta to Washington last fall. While overall I prefer Washington, I miss Atlanta because I could afford to live in the best neighborhood in Atlanta. Washington has some great neighborhoods like Clevland Park but unless I want to live in a one bedroom condo, I can't afford to live there. If I could get a job as good as the one I have now, I would move back to Atlanta or better yet San Antonio in a minute.

[Episiarch]

New York is only nice if you're independently wealthy. Otherwise the quality of life blows.

Depends on what you're looking for. I made a lot of money and had a 3-room apartment with a huge kitchen for crazy low rent ($1300/month on the Upper East Side!), and my quality of life was damn good.

However, if you don't like crowds, traffic, and no access to real nature, you won't like it. I got sick of those things, and left.

[Cesar]

John, I'd never live in the Washington area. I'm from Richmond VA and everyone from NOVA that moves down here and lives for a while said they would never go back, while a few friends of mine that went to NOVA after college got sick of the cost of living, traffic, and sprawl and moved back down.

Epi-

Yes, I hate those things even if I could get a decent apartment. I also hate dipshit tourists from the mid-west who don't know how to keep moving on a side walk and act like they've never seen a tall building before.

[Episiarch]

I wanted to be able to go for a swim (not in a pool) and not have to go out to Rockaway or Coney Island to do it.

[Brian24]

I live in NYC and love it. Loved it back when I just graduated college and had no money too, but it would be hard to go back to that now.

I also used to live in NoVa. You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that traffic-ridden land of townhouses.

Of course, I don't particularly care for swimming, Epi.

[Otis]

"I also hate dipshit tourists from the mid-west who don't know how to keep moving on a side walk and act like they've never seen a tall building before."

And New Yorkers wonder why they're seen as unfriendly?

[ex NY inmate #645,942,195]

I hate dipshit New Yorkers who see tourists from Albany and Newark and think they're from the Midwest, like they've never seen a Scanidinavian before.

[Paul]

whether the Big Apple is a libertarian pleasure-dome

?!!

Don't we already have an answer to this?

[Paul]

keep moving on a side walk and act like they've never seen a tall building before."

Many of them haven't. Give them a break.

[Brandybuck]

It must never get warm across the beltway, because I've never seen Nick without his leather jacket. That thing must be getting pretty rank.

[Hypatia]

Brandybuck...ya beat me to the punch. I have never seen him w/o it. It must be his hommage to Peter Pan...ain't never gonna grow up!

[JD]

And New Yorkers wonder why they're seen as unfriendly?

No, we don't wonder; we just don't care, is all. See, this is a crowded city with a lot of people who need to get stuff done, and you need to have some city living skills in order to make things tolerable for everyone. Don't act like a moron when you're here, and people will be a lot more friendly. Here's your first tip for free: immediately after stepping off an escalator is a really bad time to decide you have no idea where you're going, so you should stop right there and gawp at things.

That said, fuck the Sun, that fascist rag. And I don't throw that term around lightly, either, but their "alternative take on politics" includes suggesting that people who protest the Iraq war are traitors. (Not that any of the local papers are real prizes on the politics front.)

[dhex]

i dunno jd, the post is pretty uh well uh you get good headlines out of it!

"axis of weasels" being my favorite of all time, though when paris hilton was released from jail a while back they did run a fake cutout of her riding on the arms and heads of sailors in times square at the end of world war II...and the headline?

"VD Day"

but i don't understand you gotta be rich to live here folk one bit, i must say.

[Eric Sundwall]

The hunting and fishing has really gone down hill there since the natives made off with those beads.

What's with the crinkled world map Scotch taped to wall ? City folk are so kitsch, let alone provincial.

[DJ Voton]

That said, fuck the Sun, that fascist rag. And I don't throw that term around lightly, either, but their "alternative take on politics" includes suggesting that people who protest the Iraq war are traitors.
People who say that they don't "throw that term around lightly" always do...and you did.

[Anonymoose.]

That said, fuck the Sun, that fascist rag. And I don't throw that term around lightly, either, but their "alternative take on politics" includes suggesting that people who protest the Iraq war are traitors.

Are you denying the alternativeness of that?

[joshua corning]

"I also hate dipshit tourists from the mid-west who don't know how to keep moving on a side walk and act like they've never seen a tall building before."

And New Yorkers wonder why they're seen as unfriendly?

Actually i would say new yorkers are more friendly then people in Seattle...and more friendly then people in Paris....when i visited (spent most of my time in Brooklyn and Queens) it felt like a giant Portland Oregon without the dogs at the bar...well except when there was dogs at the bar.

New Yorkers are more blunt sure but unfriendly? No i did not fell that way.

But ya the place is way to expensive.

[affenkopf]

...and more friendly then people in Paris....

Is there a city that isn't more firendly than Paris? Pyongyang?

[Citizen Nothing]

"Is there a city that isn't more firendly than Paris? Pyongyang?"

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1438428757

[mitch]

I love living in Manhattan for all the beautiful buildings and the museums and the excitement, but there is no denying that people here are assholes and that it is disgusting walking on a carpet of cigarette butts, dog feces and human spit every day. I feel like an outsider, having only lived here 10 years, but everyday I see something new and crazy; it's like living in a science fiction novel. It's definitely not for everybody, but if you have the right attitude, New York life is an adventure.

[Rhywun]

but i don't understand you gotta be rich to live here folk one bit, i must say.

You gotta be rich to live the life of a fictional New Yorker. Y'know, the one who has a 3,000 sq. ft. apartment but can't walk outside without being mugged, and whose city isn't regularly voted the friendliest for travellers.

Are you denying the alternativeness of that?

The Sun might be the only daily neo-con rag, but its views are standard fare for the likes of WND and NR.

[dhex]

You gotta be rich to live the life of a fictional New Yorker. Y'know, the one who has a 3,000 sq. ft. apartment but can't walk outside without being mugged, and whose city isn't regularly voted the friendliest for travellers.

oh, yeah. i fuckin' hate those guys.

[JD]

DJ Voton - Firstly, I'm interested in investing in your mind-reading technology, which must be pretty powerful to deduce exactly how lightly someone's using a term. But to be slightly less flippant: the Sun's position boiled down to "If you disagree with our glorious government's plan for conquest, you are a traitor." I don't think "fascist" is too far off the mark. But that's OK, I'm sure they'll get around to goring one of your oxen one of these days.

[The Democratic Republican]

You all keep assuming that Gillespie only has one jacket. He might have a closet full of identical jackets.

[ChrisO]

You gotta be rich to live the life of a fictional New YorkerManhattanite.

From my most recent trips there, it appears that all of the Wall Street Masters of the Universe a-holes sip their martinis in Manhattan, and all the cool people do their stuff in Brooklyn.