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Old 07-28-2008, 12:10 AM
 
Location: Weehawken, NJ
1,302 posts, read 4,560,366 times
Reputation: 361

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I never hear anything good about Staten Island, actually I don't hear anything good or bad on this site about Staten Island. I was watching CSI:NY and they were talking about how a long time ago New York and New Jersey had a sailboat race and the winner would acquire Staten Island and the actor said "can we give it back?". So I started to wonder what is wrong with Staten Island. What is it's positives? And what are the negatives? Is it a good or bad place to live and why?
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Old 07-28-2008, 01:33 AM
 
Location: THE THRONE aka-New York City
3,003 posts, read 6,065,268 times
Reputation: 1165
Nothing is really wrong with staten island. Idk why people hate on it so much. I think si gets hate maybe because its so disconnected from the other four boroughs
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Old 07-28-2008, 02:49 AM
 
Location: New York
1,999 posts, read 4,977,881 times
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Default Staten Island was once a huge garbage dump

Staten Island is looked down upon because it has a large working class population. There are many working class whites with thick working class accents, there are many garbage men, pizzeria owners and mechanics among their ranks. It is not a place for transient white collar college educated office workers to fit in.


While you will look racist and uneducated to look down upon lower or working class Blacks or Hispanics it will cost you no diversity points to look down with complete disdain at the working class residents of Staten Island. You have the green light to trash Staten Island and its residents at any time.
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Old 07-28-2008, 03:25 AM
 
149 posts, read 198,551 times
Reputation: 37
Quote:
Originally Posted by samyn on the green View Post
Staten Island is looked down upon because it has a large working class population. There are many working class whites with thick working class accents, there are many garbage men, pizzeria owners and mechanics among their ranks. It is not a place for transient white collar college educated office workers to fit in.


While you will look racist and uneducated to look down upon lower or working class Blacks or Hispanics it will cost you no diversity points to look down with complete disdain at the working class residents of Staten Island. You have the green light to trash Staten Island and its residents at any time.

HUH?

Staten Island is NOT working class. Staten Island is uniformly middle/upper-middle class so what are you talking about?

People hate Staten Island because it doesn't even seem like NYC. Staten Island should be part of New Jersey.
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Old 07-28-2008, 03:54 AM
 
Location: New York
1,999 posts, read 4,977,881 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by soho111 View Post
HUH?

Staten Island is NOT working class. Staten Island is uniformly middle/upper-middle class so what are you talking about?

People hate Staten Island because it doesn't even seem like NYC. Staten Island should be part of New Jersey.
They may think they are "middle class" but they are mostly working class. What are these people doing all day? They are working to pick up garbage and other assorted jobs which makes them working class. Just because they have a car payment and a mortgage does not elevate them into some stratified social class. At the very least a middle class person should own their own business and be financially independent. Sure there are plenty of Staten residents that own their own business but for every business owner there are ten garbageman on Staten Island. I am not trying to put down Staten Island or the people that live there. My post explains the very real sentiment of the upper class of Manhattan/Westchester/Yuppie Brooklynites towards Staten Island. The thing that is unique is that it is completely acceptable to lampoon Staten Island residents in many parts of Manhattan or Westchester. However lampooning a lower or working class black is considered completely unacceptable and racist.


People hate Staten Island because of the working class vibe, it is a different culture than in Manhattan or Westchester. Different blood, different accent different diet, different everything. These differences are what makes the NY metro so interesting as very few other areas in the states have these micro-cultures within such a small geographic area. Greenwich CT does not seem like Manhattan or Brooklyn and yet nobody hates on Greenwich like they hate on Staten. People hate on Staten because of the Italian American working class vibe. (I'm Tawking to youse/how you dewin') Suburban raised American, I eat at whole foods to make myself feel better, white collar types that are attracted to Manhattan can not relate to Staten Island. While Manhattan is Organic tofu salad, Staten Island is baked ziti. While these people hating on Staten Island have been trained to repress their racist feelings towards blacks or hispanics these attitudes are acceptable to express towards the working class whites of Staten Island.

Last edited by samyn on the green; 07-28-2008 at 04:25 AM..
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Old 07-28-2008, 04:49 AM
 
Location: THE THRONE aka-New York City
3,003 posts, read 6,065,268 times
Reputation: 1165
Your venting for no reason, people dont like staten island because its nothing like brooklyn, bronx ,queens and manhattan nothing less nothing more
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Old 07-28-2008, 05:04 AM
 
Location: New York
1,999 posts, read 4,977,881 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by K.O.N.Y View Post
Your venting for no reason, people dont like staten island because its nothing like brooklyn, bronx ,queens and manhattan nothing less nothing more
My name is not Venting and I have my reasons. Back to the main discussion. Why do these same people that hate Staten Island like the Hamptons? The Hamptons are nothing like Manhattan or Brooklyn yet loved by all. You already admitted in your initial post in the thread that you have no idea what you are talking about. Why post if you do not know?

By saying that Staten Island is marginalized because it is different is oversimplifying or a displaying a complete lack of understanding of the cultural undercurrents of the region.

Pretending that these class cultural differences do not create static, biases and angst is to stick your head in the sand. Class war is the new racism n the New York metro. Staten Island is squarely one of the last white working class strongholds and this makes it undesirable. The same reason that drives people away from Richmond County s the same reason that this mostly white county has yet to receive a whole foods or Trader Joes. The people on Staten Island are working class and not completely assimilated. They tawk while the rest of New York talks.

Last edited by samyn on the green; 07-28-2008 at 05:27 AM..
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Old 07-28-2008, 09:28 AM
 
Location: No Sleep Til Brooklyn
1,409 posts, read 5,235,739 times
Reputation: 613
Agreed. Staten Island is simply seen as terribly inconvenient by those of us who work in Manhattan or have our cultural/entertainment lives focused toward it . We can't imagine living in a place that you can only get to via ferry (for the millions of us without cars).

Staten Island isn't any more suburban than some of the edges of Queens, but due to the lack of subway/train connection to the rest of the city, it seems really isolated to those of us who don't live there or have any reason to visit. Not to be snarky, but I've lived in NYC for 15 years and I've never had a reason to go to Staten Island. I'm not saying that there aren't things to see or do there, just that the Island is insular and folks like it that way.
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Old 07-28-2008, 09:58 AM
 
Location: Queens
536 posts, read 2,342,013 times
Reputation: 172
Quote:
Originally Posted by samyn on the green View Post
The people on Staten Island are working class and not completely assimilated. They tawk while the rest of New York talks.
The way I see it, Manhattan tocks while the rest of NY talks.

Anyway, equally working-class and suburban parts of Long Island, NJ and eastern Queens also poke fun at staten constantly. I think the landfill and remoteness make it the butt of jokes, not any class war or whatever you're talking about.
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Old 07-28-2008, 10:03 AM
 
Location: Newton, Mass.
2,954 posts, read 12,262,641 times
Reputation: 1511
I don't like Whole Foods or the Hamptons, but I also don't like Staten Island, and I have been there quite often. The reason I don't like it, in addition to the length of the commute, is that it was largely developed after the Verrazano Bridge opened, at a low-water mark for American urban design. There is therefore (in addition to some very nice, but very suburban, neighborhoods) an unappealing hodgepodge of stucco, strip malls, and buildings that do not mesh together very well at all. So it is not just that it is different from the other boroughs, it is that it generally does not look as nice. I also don't share the predominant political philosophy there, so that is a turnoff.
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