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No. You are hardly the first, and will not be the last.
I think lower Manhattan, particularly the West and East Village, feel especially European.That is the oldest part of the city, with many 18th century buildings that are built off the grid, on narrow, curved and cobblstoned lanes.
There are many buildings with Dutch step roofes - both in NYC, the Hudson Valley and NJ.
I've seen the LES compared to a Paris neighborhood before, I think called the Bastille
I do think Boston has a more European feel, aesthetically, than NYC. It is older, more historical, more quaint through and through, greener as well (NYC lacks in that area) and cleaner also. It is also quite walkable, as it's smaller than NYC.
That being said, I think culturally NYC is the most European-feeling because it's really the port of entry for many immigrants, and thus it has more of an international feel rather than a mainland American feel. It is thus more cosmopolitan and more sophisticated culturally.
It seems like a lot of European expats come to NYC, and not jusrt working class Eastern European immigrants. And many European tourists as well who can be found in more places than the stereotypical tourist spots.
Yes! I've been saying for years that Montreal reminds me a lot of NYC, the overall vibe somehow does. Will be visiting Milan this fall, will see how that compares.
I will say that, as a native NY'er, that sometimes I do feel more at home in cities like London, Mexico City, Montreal/Toronto, etc, than I do some places in the US.
this is 100% true, and sometimes is hard for Americans to understand, Nationality is the center of European citizenship and is passed down the line by blood, not place of birth, race is not a factor. In the USA the system is "jus solis" citizenship is granted by place of birth and moderately by blood. Millions of Latin Americans have European citizenship its very common.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, because of the Spanish civil war and the aftermath of WW2, millions of Spaniyards, Italians, and Germans moved to Latin America. So there are millions of Latin Americans who have European passports because of their grandparents.
You need to look around then. Plenty of old buildings here in NYC... NYC was built primarily by the Dutch so to say that there are no European similarities is absurd.
I agree. Milan is a "piccolo New York" as I used to call it when I would go up there (I lived in Northern Italy but traveled all over). It is very walkable and in fact you don't need to use the "pullman" or trams. I don't think of Milan as dirty or chaotic though. That title goes to Naples, mainly because of the mafia. The minute you step out of the train station it's pure hell.
European cities have buildings from the medieval era. NYC was not in existence in the medieval era. Most of NYC is on a solid grid and the older European cities I've been to are not built up on a solid grid. Of course Europe is a pretty big place, but in the parts of Europe I'm familiar with I see absolutely no similarities to NYC.
European cities have buildings from the medieval era. NYC was not in existence in the medieval era. Most of NYC is on a solid grid and the older European cities I've been to are not built up on a solid grid. Of course Europe is a pretty big place, but in the parts of Europe I'm familiar with I see absolutely no similarities to NYC.
I’ve been to both places, so I feel I am able to make this comparison.
Aside from the obvious difference that NYC has with European cities, NYC is more dense with many more skyscrapers and everything including roads are bigger (then again everything in the United States feels bigger) I feel nyc still has a European feel to it, that I can’t completely describe in words. NYC really does feel London. Paris doesn’t feel like NYC too much. Amsterdam, maybe.
Your thoughts?
nah, I am an American and I lived almost 20 years in several European countries before coming back. NYC feels like a really big and dense American city.
Basically take any American city with its skyscrapers, its post industrial areas, and its outer suburbs, make it denser and you have NYC.
NYC as a whole, no. But some specific neighborhoods, yes.
For example, some parts of Queens remind me of Brussels (Belgium). The UES has a somewhat similar vibe to western Paris (7th, 8th, 16th quarters), while the UWS was more like the Montmartre neighborhood (18th quarter).
London, to me, is different. It's more spread out really and has less of a full-on urban vibe.
I definitely get the same kind of vibe in Montreal that NYC has, more so than Toronto. It's a feel and a look. London, it's mixed - places like Shoreditch do give me the same vibe that the LES and Bushwick give. The ritzier parts are a different kind of ritzy than NYC ritz though. Milan didn't give off a NYC vibe to me, then again, I was mostly in the center there and didn't get out to the more distant business districts. Paris has a vibe of its own that does not resemble NYC's at all.
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