Any New Yorkers relocate and like Louisville? (Bedford, Sanders: apartment, movies)

[Hubcap_halo]

I'm a New Yorker who likes the diversity and tolerance of NYC and is considering moving to Louisville. I've heard it's a pretty liberal or at least tolerant city.

Any New Yorkers relocate there and like it?

[louroclou]

Do you mean the city or the state? We lived in Rochester for 35 years, then repatriated to Louisville 3 years ago. We absolutely love it: the art, architecture, music, mood, greenery, scenery, and most of all the odd, talkative, approachable, unpretentious but progressive people here.

[jakbeau]

Born in Brooklyn, a Manhattanite at heart, and now relocated to Louisville. Come on down, I think you'll enjoy it. Of course there's nowhere near the diversity of NYC, or San Francisco for that matter (the tiny Manhattan on the Pacific), but it's an easy small city to live in, meet people and enjoy.

[louroclou]

I love San Francisco and I love Manhattan. I spent time in San Francisco last year and I visited a cousin who lives in New York this past summer. I love being in that kind of sweet madness, but I always enjoy returning. I love the intriguing plot of Louisville's story, and the characters in the mix. That plot is still unfolding, and will often surprise us. San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston... their plots are pretty much finished. We know the stories, the atmospheres, the tenors. Louisville, though, is not done. It will always be a smaller story, it's true, but it will no doubt be an odd and enjoyable one. If the big cities are blockbuster movies, Louisville is a good indie film. I like both, but it's the indies I seek out, the ones that live in me. The arc of the epics is always the same. The twists of indie film are full of surprises. And characters: Louisville's weirdness quotient is pretty high - Hunter S. Thompson, Muhammed Ali, Will Oldham, Gus Vant Sant, Col. Sanders (the real one, not the logo he turned into), Slint and all the ground-breaking post-rockers... [only Baltimore, with Poe, Mencken, John Waters, Frank Zappa, David Byrne, has a higher wq that I know of]

Or maybe it's the difference between an orchestral piece and a chamber piece. You have to listen differently, but both can bring great joy. Louisville is not Beethoven's 9th, but it can be his Kreutzer Sonata. Listen slowly, listen quietly.

[stx12499]

Originally Posted by louroclou

I love San Francisco and I love Manhattan. I spent time in San Francisco last year and I visited a cousin who lives in New York this past summer. I love being in that kind of sweet madness, but I always enjoy returning. I love the intriguing plot of Louisville's story, and the characters in the mix. That plot is still unfolding, and will often surprise us. San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston... their plots are pretty much finished. We know the stories, the atmospheres, the tenors. Louisville, though, is not done. It will always be a smaller story, it's true, but it will no doubt be an odd and enjoyable one. If the big cities are blockbuster movies, Louisville is a good indie film. I like both, but it's the indies I seek out, the ones that live in me. The arc of the epics is always the same. The twists of indie film are full of surprises. And characters: Louisville's weirdness quotient is pretty high - Hunter S. Thompson, Muhammed Ali, Will Oldham, Gus Vant Sant, Col. Sanders (the real one, not the logo he turned into), Slint and all the ground-breaking post-rockers... [only Baltimore, with Poe, Mencken, John Waters, Frank Zappa, David Byrne, has a higher wq that I know of]

Or maybe it's the difference between an orchestral piece and a chamber piece. You have to listen differently, but both can bring great joy. Louisville is not Beethoven's 9th, but it can be his Kreutzer Sonata. Listen slowly, listen quietly.

Superb similies!!!!

[louroclou]

Thanks! If you try to compare Louisville with big cities, we'll always 'lose' because those places set the criteria (but not the standards, if you know what I mean). You need to tilt your head and see things a little differently. I know if folks come here and expect to be satisfied the same way they were in NY or SF or Boston, they doom themselves to disappointment. The process of inhabiting a place is an function of the imagination, of nudging the soul into a place. It's not a matter of compromising; it's a matter of letting a city's peculiarities, rhythms, rituals, vistas find a way of making sense, the way we do when we read a novel. Some folks can't really see - or read - New York because of a failure of imagination, and I'm sure a place like Louisville is a challenge to others. But learning to love places is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

[Hubcap_halo]

Originally Posted by louroclou

I love San Francisco and I love Manhattan. I spent time in San Francisco last year and I visited a cousin who lives in New York this past summer. I love being in that kind of sweet madness, but I always enjoy returning. I love the intriguing plot of Louisville's story, and the characters in the mix. That plot is still unfolding, and will often surprise us. San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston... their plots are pretty much finished. We know the stories, the atmospheres, the tenors. Louisville, though, is not done. It will always be a smaller story, it's true, but it will no doubt be an odd and enjoyable one. If the big cities are blockbuster movies, Louisville is a good indie film. I like both, but it's the indies I seek out, the ones that live in me. The arc of the epics is always the same. The twists of indie film are full of surprises. And characters: Louisville's weirdness quotient is pretty high - Hunter S. Thompson, Muhammed Ali, Will Oldham, Gus Vant Sant, Col. Sanders (the real one, not the logo he turned into), Slint and all the ground-breaking post-rockers... [only Baltimore, with Poe, Mencken, John Waters, Frank Zappa, David Byrne, has a higher wq that I know of]

Or maybe it's the difference between an orchestral piece and a chamber piece. You have to listen differently, but both can bring great joy. Louisville is not Beethoven's 9th, but it can be his Kreutzer Sonata. Listen slowly, listen quietly.

WOW. I'M ready to move from Brooklyn to Louisville on the basis of this totally fun and intelligent blurb alone. Anyone who can appreciate Slint, Muhammed Ali, Hunter S. Thompson, Gus Van Sant and Col Sanders simultaneously is someone I want for a neighbor.

Thank you!

[Hubcap_halo]

I'm frankly growing tired of NYC. Not tired as in bored, but physically tired. Overstimulated.

I want an apartment for $500. I want to be near more trees. I want more quiet. I want a few book stores and coffeeshops and not 10,000. I want a few "cool" people and not be nearly crushed by the stampede that is the American Apparel Ad of my street, Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn.

I'm originally from Minneapolis and I thought of going back there, but that place is almost too pristine and clean for me, too white, too....too much my hometown. And it's more expensive.

Now if I can just find freelance and part-time work as an ad writer in Louisville I'll be set.