Is Chicagos nightlife dead? (Kansas, Brooklyn: cliquey, apartment, house)

[Heyooooo]

Originally Posted by trancedout

Of course it's everywhere, but it's at a different level in Chicago.

Minneapolis isn't as fanatical about the Vikings or Twins, Kansas City isn't as fanatical about the Chiefs or Royals. The only place that comes close to Chicago's sports obsession (specifically Bears/Cubs) would be the Packers in all of Wisconsin.

For some reason, the Bulls aren't as big a deal as you think they would be in Chicago and really do get overshadowed by the Bears or Cubs, no matter how bad those are.

You have apparently never been to Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Boston, New York, Philly, etc.

Chicago is certainly top 3 as far as passion and fandom go IMO (Boston and Philly are the other two), but there are a NUMBER of cities that are crazy for sports.



Upstate NY in general to me has a culture very very much like Chicago does. Its people and drinking culture are identical.

What city has the most bars per capita (Oswego, NY sounds like it could be in WI)

Buffalo is a major drinking and sports town. I am from Utica. We have FX Matts Brewery which is a big part of the city culture, who brews Utica Club and Saranac. We were the kids in college who got drunk like everyone else and drove them home (yes, stupid, but an example of how hard we drink). I ****ing love Chicago because it reminds me of where I am from.

Sports wise? Same. People here are mostly NY/Buffalo fans, and peoples lives revolve around it.

Dress wise? Same. Casual. Not nearly as fashion conscious as other EC cities.

You have to realize, not everyone is after glitz, glamour and nightclub dancing.

[Heyooooo]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

Nothing wrong with what? I'm just saying it sounds like you haven't been around much if you think no other place compares to Illinois and Wisconsin for love of sports. People in Boston, Philly, and San Fran are crazy about their sports teams, just to name a few....and unlike Chicago, those places actually demand that their teams win. Then you have the smaller cities, where sports dominate more because they don't have as many non-sports entertainment options as places like NY/LA/Chi. Cleveland, Indy, and St. Louis come to mind, though the ultimate example in recent years would be Oklahoma City. Imagine if the "Da Bears" guys from SNL were real, and they occupied every seat at every game, and you pretty much have OKC Thunder fans.

And don't even get me started on how college sports dominate some areas. It's way more extreme than pro sports in Chicago.

Good post.

[Heyooooo]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I'd say it's more of a middle-of-the-country thing. Texans can give Wisconsinites a run for their money in beer drinking, and let's not forget New Orleans when it comes to drinking culture. You see the same kind of drinking around Big 12 and SEC campuses that you see around the Big 10.

Outside of mid-America, Brooklyn (as I said earlier in the thread) has a heavy-drinking bar scene very similar to Chicago's. Boston can drink, too.

From the Rocky Mountains to the West Coast there seems to be less heavy drinking and more heavy pot smoking compared to here.

Upstate NY cities (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Albany) can definitely outdrink NYC. Totally different culture. Last call in Buffalo and Albany is 4am for **** sake.

When I was in college, it was the perfect time to see who could drink and who couldnt. I went to Western Michigan for a semester and SUNY Brockport (near Rochester). Folks in the Midwest can drink, as can Upstate NYers. Maybe its a rust belt thing. The downstaters (LI, NYC) were more about talking than drinking. The people who drank the most and stayed up the latest and always wanted to drink were by no surprise, the Upstaters.

Think about it. What else is there to do here? Theres much more to do in NYC. I would definitely say NYC is more of a posh/mixed drink town than a beer town. Hipsters in Brooklyn have a long way to go to transforming the cities drinking culture. I have lived there as well. Upstate people are just more of a casual beer drinking lets get ****ed up kind. We take our beer very seriously, and generally speaking, I think its fair to say that Upstate NY is more in line with Midwest type culture, and I said that as someone from there. Its not entirely, but its definitely shared.

[Heyooooo]

We have a lot of historic breweries here and we kind of identify by them. Brooklyn Brewery contracts out to Utica to make Brooklyn Lager, etc.

Utica Club is like our Old Style, and then theres Saranac, which is really our flagship brand. Total hippie beer.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Heyooooo

Upstate NY cities (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Albany) can definitely outdrink NYC. Totally different culture. Last call in Buffalo and Albany is 4am for **** sake.

Upstate New York cities, for the most part, fall into my middle-of-the-country category. I know they're not considered Midwest since they're in a coastal state, but western NY is pretty far from the coast, and as you have pointed out a few times, is culturally more similar to the rest of the Great Lakes / Rust Belt area than it is to coastal cities like NYC.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Heyooooo

I would definitely say NYC is more of a posh/mixed drink town than a beer town.

If we're talking Manhattan, I agree completely, but not Brooklyn based on my experience.

[Heyooooo]

I would say Brooklyn is a mix, because there are areas outside downtown with clubs. Definitely not enough to put beer over mixed. I have a lot of friends who moved from Upstate to Brooklyn. Brooklyn has a ton of Upstaters and Midwest folk doing the beer drinking.

SF has a mix too, but its a wine-drinking city. Chicago, beer. NYC, mixed drinks/hard liquor.

Its silly to generalize but im just basing it on my experience, and the city on the whole...


and just knowing Upstate NY as a region, having grown up here, it definitely falls more in line with Chicago and the Great Lakes/Rust Belt. Id say Albany is where the New England influence comes in. If you ever find yourself on this side of I90, you will notice the beer drinking prevalence. I think the weather is also a major contributing factor. Cities average anywhere from 70-100 inches of snow in the winter. What else is there to do?

I definitely think one of the reasons why I love Chicago so much is because of the similarities. Pretty much everyone I know there drinks most nights of the week, and the nightlife options IMO are extremely varied, like NYC, but obviously smaller scale.

[ChiNaan]

Originally Posted by Heyooooo

Brooklyn has a ton of Upstaters and Midwest folk doing the beer drinking.

Exactly. And New Englanders. And working class locals (yes, they still exist there). That's who makes up Brooklyn. That was pretty much my point. Brooklyn has a low-key neighborhood beer bar on every corner, just like Chicago.

[aragx6]

As someone living in Kansas City I can say with total confidence that the idea that people here aren't as crazy about the Chiefs as Chicagoans are about the Bears is laughable. The fans here are crazy. Ask anyone who's ever been to Arrowhead.

Stephei, I guess I don't see what your issue with people who go to bars, hang out with their friends and "don't even socialize" You say you'd rather just have people over at your house, and, of course, people do that all the time too, but a lot of people have small apartments or grumpy neighbors or just generally prefer their place to be a sanctuary from the outside world. The idea of local watering hole as meeting place is as old as time.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by trancedout

Minneapolis isn't as fanatical about the Vikings or Twins

Uh, to the level of the Bears? Not necessarily, but having grown up in Minnesota, I'll tell you that there are a lot of fanatical Vikings fans out there. The difference is that they aren't *******s, but there are some biiiiigtime ones. Hell, even growing up I remember the Packers fans at my schools had to put up with tons of verbal abuse. Even the teachers were in on it. I remember one of my teachers had some sort of remote control car and took a packers stuffed doll thing, tied a string to it and the remote control car and paraded it down the hallways as if it was a packers player being dragged on the ground into a town square like a "Packers SUCK" thing ...and the principal even applauded it.

Trust me, people are pretty fanatical about the Vikings. Not everyone, but there's a lot. Twins, there's a lot of die hard fans but they aren't ridiculous about it...mainly because between 1993 and 2000 we sucked hard.