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I don't think "native New Yorkers" are the right people to ask whether the magic is lost because I don't think many natives here or anywhere experience "the magic" of the place where they are born and raised. To most it's just home, nothing magical about it. Some love it and some come to hate it but magic has nothing to do with it.
I think the "magic" that is New York( or of even a city like Venice which can be purely magical) is something that is mostly in the minds of and experienced by non natives....outsiders and transplants.
One decline of NYC were the peak of the transplant hipsters moving in they brought in even more of their leftist crap from collage then what was already here! one time i saw them in a long line of them i thought maybe a new iphone nope they standing in line for a damn pastry that had nutella in it!!
One decline of NYC were the peak of the transplant hipsters moving in they brought in even more of their leftist crap from collage then what was already here! one time i saw them in a long line of them i thought maybe a new iphone nope they standing in line for a damn pastry that had nutella in it!!
This man/woman speaks the truth.
A lot of transplants are cornballs.
As an Eastern European I was born exactly when the Soviet Union started to fall in the late 80s and local TV channels were able to start broadcasting American movies. As everyone else in my generation (now 30 year olds) I grew up on classic 80s and 90s American films and most of them were set in New York of course (Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, Home Alone 2 and so on). Later when I began to gain interest in popular music and arts, I started to appreciate NYC even more and more. The dangerous neon-lit big bad city seemed incredible and very characteristic to me with full of extreme and exciting people, unique venues (on the verge of "creepy") of every imaginable style (there was that old church for example that held sick rave parties or something like that). It seemed to be a mecca of art, freedom, self-expression and excitement.
Later when I grew up, I had the fortune to travel all across the US in 2012, 2013 and 2017 and to be perfectly honest NYC was a bit of a letdown. I missed that Scorsese kind of atmosphere. I found the city to be overly corporate and touristy (as a contrast, New Orleans for example was fantastic!). I missed the mom and pop shops, the movie theaters (not the corporate disney kind), the classic dinners, even that peculiar accent that I can still recognize in street interviews from the early and mid 2000’s. Maybe my expectations were too high. In my free time I like to watch old NYC footages on Youtube and when I watch videos from the 80s and 90s it’s just like the movies, and Youtube commenters (at least the native New Yorkers) seem to be in agreement under these videos that the city has lost a piece of its magic along recent decades. They say that the vanishing of the working and middle class is a big reason for that and that the turning point was somewhere around 9/11. Is that true?
As a foreigner, I’m interested in the opinion of native New Yorkers here.
I was born in NYC and spent half of my childhood between NYC and LI. After college, I returned to NYC for several years, before relocating to the DC metro.
Since I still have some family there, I visit often and have realized for quite some time that the culture of NYC has changed dramatically. The people who made NYC --well, NYC, have relocated in droves. What is left are the transplants from middle America.
I have absolutely no interest in ever living in NYC again. The culture is mostly dead and very much like what you would find in Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Michigan etc.
The NY I was born and raised in is still here, you just have to look for it a little harder. Personally, I have no problem just ignoring the transplants. I sat a bar, had dinner and watched a game for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It was heaven. Everything else is just noise.
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose – (Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr)
I don't think "native New Yorkers" are the right people to ask whether the magic is lost because I don't think many natives here or anywhere experience "the magic" of the place where they are born and raised. To most it's just home, nothing magical about it. Some love it and some come to hate it but magic has nothing to do with it.
I think the "magic" that is New York( or of even a city like Venice which can be purely magical) is something that is mostly in the minds of and experienced by non natives....outsiders and transplants.
Basically NYC has only 3 main thing going for it. Dining, bars, shopping, and more dining. Hardly anything else left. The nightlife scene is scattered and limited. I guess it's also the millennial foodie culture that demands for more eating vs anything else.
It's got The Met.
About seven years ago I spent a week (during a much longer trip to the city) going to The Met as many hours that they were open as I could, and I didn't see everything I wanted to see.
I've been to a number of museums in other locales and never felt quite that way.
Disney, gentrification and the pricing out of independent businesses have made this place incredibly bland.
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