Which metro area is less pretentious/white collar or more down to earth/blue collar- Boston or NYC? (Lynn: apartment, neighborhood)

[bostonguy1960]

Parts of desirable Cambridge are very gritty and blue-collar looking...even if yuppies, buying or renting, may inhabit the dwellings. Does long-ago working-class Cambridge have an accent? I'm not sure, as I didn't grow up in the region.

Even parts of Brookline and Newton have somewhat blue-collar or working-class looks despite their prestige. Again, not sure if their less affluent pockets had accents a generation ago.

Even Belmont has working-class type streets. I rented a basement studio decades ago there for a year in a two-family structure. Not a real fancy cluster of streets in that immediate area. Same can be said about Arlington.

[sheena12]

Originally Posted by MassNative2891

That's more like Braintree, Melrose, Malden, Everett, Quincy, etc.

Boston itself doesn't really sport the accent. It's weird but NYC (city proper) is probably more Blue Collar than Boston. Boston suburbs are much more Blue Collar than NYC 'burbs though.

People in Manhattan don't have NY accents either. What people think of as a "NY Accent" is mostly in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and especially Staten Island.

But I agree. The Boston accent isn't in Boston any longer. Blue collar people are the keepers of the regional accent - anywhere. Not my opinion - ask any linguist.

[SIJ95]

Originally Posted by sheena12

People in Manhattan don't have NY accents either. What people think of as a "NY Accent" is mostly in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and especially Staten Island.
P
But I agree. The Boston accent isn't in Boston any longer. Blue collar people are the keepers of the regional accent - anywhere. Not my opinion - ask any linguist.

See in NYC I think your ethnicity is what determines if you have the accent. Jews, Italians, Irish, Poles and Puerto Ricans have the accent regardless from what I have noticed and Chinese, Black, Dominicans etc. don't have the accent except for a few words (Noo Yawk), Jews have their own accent too which sounds different and a Jew and an Italian raised in the same area and educated in the same schools will sound different. And the NYC accent still exists in Manhattan, it just is diluted by the fact that so many people in Manhattan are from away..but if you go to the Jew areas on the UWS, Washington Heights you will hear it, same also if you go to one of the big Mitchell Lama Superblocks which is subsidized housing for middle class people that only long term NY residents can get into.,,those buildings are like a blast from the past because a lot of the old ethnicities that used to live in the area surrounding the buildings are still in the buildings because unlike regular apartment blocks you can't gentrify or white flight/block bust these buldings because of the fact that apartments get passed down and the list is so long it isn't uncommon to wait 15 or even 20 years just to get board consideration.


These apartments usually have the old group that has left everywhere else in the area. For example my dad grew up in one of those blocks on the LES and my cousins and aunt live there and it is still divided by the fact that the northern 2 buildings are Jewish and the southern 2 are Italian/Polish/Ukrainian, and in Hells Kitchen and Chelsea the buildings are still Irish and Portguese (and Puert Rican in some buildings but not the classier ones).

It seems like Boston has a much less middle class housing and big apartments, most of the buildings look like 3 deckers not buildings But you're telling me the accent in Boston proper is dead? Even in the Irish parts of lake Dorchester across the river from Milton? Even in West Roxbury which is the most native (% of residents born in Boston). I guess that means that if I decide to move to Boston I don't have the option of a lot of suburbs or most of the close suburbs because I hate white collar environments for living.

[jayrandom]

A lot of generalizing in this thread. You can definitely still find regional accents in Boston proper. Listen to the current Mayor or the previous one, for goodness sake. It is true that traditionally blue collar neighborhoods are gentrifying but it's not total. Boston is expensive, especially convenient neighborhoods tht are safe. Outside of some lucrative trades, blue collar work that can support living in expensive neighborhoods doesn't really exist in Massachusetts.

Also, I'm a bit confused as to what you're looking for. Do you want to find an authentic Boston neighborhood and then proceed to bring your New York accent to make it that much less authentic?

[MassNative2891]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

A lot of generalizing in this thread. You can definitely still find regional accents in Boston proper. Listen to the current Mayor or the previous one, for goodness sake. It is true that traditionally blue collar neighborhoods are gentrifying but it's not total. Boston is expensive, especially convenient neighborhoods tht are safe. Outside of some lucrative trades, blue collar work that can support living in expensive neighborhoods doesn't really exist in Massachusetts.

Also, I'm a bit confused as to what you're looking for. Do you want to find an authentic Boston neighborhood and then proceed to bring your New York accent to make it that much less authentic?

Agree, but those guys represent an "old guard". Menino and Marty do have strong accents. However, you are more likely to hear a "Boston accent" from Shore folks (North & South) and inner suburbs like Medford, Revere, Chelsea or Everett. If you grew up in the city, it's not even a debate.

But I will concede that some folks in the outer neighborhoods (Eastie, Westie, HP, Roslindale, Southie, Charlestown) may sport it.

[SIJ95]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

A lot of generalizing in this thread. You can definitely still find regional accents in Boston proper. Listen to the current Mayor or the previous one, for goodness sake. It is true that traditionally blue collar neighborhoods are gentrifying but it's not total. Boston is expensive, especially convenient neighborhoods tht are safe. Outside of some lucrative trades, blue collar work that can support living in expensive neighborhoods doesn't really exist in Massachusetts.

Also, I'm a bit confused as to what you're looking for. Do you want to find an authentic Boston neighborhood and then proceed to bring your New York accent to make it that much less authentic?

I am not trying to live in Boston, but I appreciate local culture so just like I would recommend someone who wanted to experience New York and New Yorkers hang out in outer Brooklyn or SI because inner New York is just "ethnic Midwestern culture" I am just trying to see where actual people from Boston with unique Boston culture live because I am interested in that as opposed to "urban hipster monoculture" I know that these people don't live in inner close in neighborhoods with a train (subway) stop. But I was just looking for areas where this did exist. Not looking for richie neighborhoods I was just curious. By blue collar I mean your tradesmen, cops, firemen etc.

[traffic_lover]

Medford, Woburn or billerica

[495neighbor]

Originally Posted by traffic_lover

Medford, Woburn or billerica

Woburn, a blue collar island anchored between tony Lexington and Winchester. Its working class roots unscathed by the rapidly Yuppifying Arlington, Melrose, Burlington and Reading. Really a phenomenon.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by 495neighbor

Woburn, a blue collar island anchored between tony Lexington and Winchester. Its working class roots unscathed by the rapidly Yuppifying Arlington, Melrose, Burlington and Reading. Really a phenomenon.

Yep, I wonder if it still suffers from the Case Summary stigma?

[pandas&presents]

Just my 2 cents. Having now experienced both NYC and Boston, I would say that only in NYC does the upper class (or at least a portion of it) embrace and glorify aspects of lower class culture. Some choose lofts in Tribeca over an Upper East Side apartment because it still has some of that cool Lower Manhattan grittiness from the days when downtown life, like on The Bowery, was the opposite of respectable. You also see it in clothing and music choices. Boston's upper classes remain staid and preppy whereas the rich avant-garde folk in New York often gravitate to more street inspired high fashion (e.g., Phillip Lim) and music.

The upper class in Boston appears to have a complete disdain for anything blue collar or from the lower classes. There is more tolerance among some of the upper class in NYC. (Not to say that the Koch brothers will be showing up at a Jay Z concert anytime soon. This is the attitude among some but certainly not all upper class New Yorkers. Definitely not the Park Avenue crowd. Maybe more so the nouveau riche.)

Both cities have neighborhoods of working and lower class people. You see the extremes more in New York IMO...but most there share the same subway for at least part of their trip.