What is the future of New York City?

Every once in a while I’ll come across a title of an article that is better than the article itself, sometimes even on this very website. The book jacket is just better than the book. I’ve actually met a few people like this too, and after marveling at the beauty of the jacket and renewing the book a few times, I’ll come to the odd realization that the jacket may have atrophied the contents of the book.

With that complete digression I’d like to present you with an article I just read in the New York Times called New York Is Dead. Long Live New York. The title is very good and the content is kind of good. It basically posits five possible futures for New York: (i) a bankrupt, dirty ghost town; (ii) a progressive utopia; (iii) a party city; (iv) a concrete tech haven à la Silicon Valley; and (v) basically what it was before.

Chelsea resident Michael Musto offers some fun thoughts on option (iii):

“People will practically be mating in the streets,” said Michael Musto, the longtime nightlife columnist for the Village Voice, now back in quarterly form. “Fueling all that, cunning entrepreneurs will swoop into all the empty storefronts to reinvent them as dance clubs and other pleasure palaces.”

“People might even look up from their phones,” he added.

New York’s swingers clubs are already gearing up. Snctm, a members-only club, returns this month with erotic masquerades that recall the haute orgy scenes in “Eyes Wide Shut.” Killing Kittens, a London-based members-only club that throws lavish fem-dom erotic parties, returns later this spring, and the club’s founder, Emma Sayle, thinks that pent-up passions, along with more acceptance for non-monogamy and polyamory, will lay the groundwork for next-level indulgence. “As far as we’re concerned,” she said, “it’s go big or go home.”

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, though I should say I have no real sense of what and where the poles are. Whatever it was, whatever it is now, whatever it will be in the future, long live New York.

What happened to the city that never sleeps?

Marquee asking the important questions.

It’s been a while since I’ve been rhetorically challenged by a sign outside of a nightclub, but I’m generally up for a challenge no matter who or what is serving it. What really did happen to the city that never sleeps? Our investigation continues, though as far as my high-powered team of consultants and lawyers can tell so far, everyone just started staying in their apartments or leaving this place altogether about a year ago now.

The more important question is, I think, what are we going to do about it? I’m not going to say something bland and corporate like “we need to come together as a community,” but I can tell you that some of my recent days have been significantly improved by just randomly bumping into a few people I’ve met through this block association on the street. That experience can be yours as well. Stay tuned.

Spring comes to the block.

When I was in college I walked past a group of trees in full pink bloom and thought to myself—I should really take a picture of that. But I didn’t.

Two days later I walked past that same group of trees and they had already transitioned into their full summer green. I thought I had more time left to take a picture, but I didn’t.

I’m going to resist the urge here to go into a full-scale discourse on the momentariness of Spring and life; the metaphor is a little too on the nose for my liking. All I’ll say is that the fact that you don’t know how many more times you’ll get to see a tree in full pink bloom—is it 5 more times? 20? 40?—doesn’t mean it’s infinite.

So delete a few of the screenshots you’re never really going to look at again, free up some space on your phone, and take a picture of the pink tree. Start a block association. Post it to your website. Ramble about it on the home page. That tree will be green before you know it.

An article about Manhattan changing forever that I didn’t appreciate.

One of the reasons why I decided to form this block association in the first place was because of a nauseating uncertainty about all manner of things, including whether the pandemic has changed the city forever. Well I’m here to tell you today that the New York Times has answered my nightmares and posited that, yes, Manhattan may never be the same. From the article:

In recent weeks, major corporations, including Ford in Michigan and Target in Minnesota, have said they are giving up significant office space because of their changing workplace practices, while Salesforce, whose headquarters occupies the tallest building in San Francisco, said only a small fraction of its employees will be in the office full time.

But no city in the United States, and perhaps the world, must reckon with this transformation more than New York, and in particular Manhattan, an island whose economy has been sustained, from the corner hot dog vendor to Broadway theaters, by more than 1.6 million commuters every day.

Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Manhattan May Never Be the Same. So the basic idea is that because daily commuters are keeping the city’s economic ecosystem alive, and because they’re just going to Zoom it in from Westchester or Long Island or wherever from now on, the rest of us won’t ever be able to go to a coffee shop again. Ok.

That brings to mind an E.B. White quote about the three New Yorks:

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.

…Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.

Who couldn’t use a little less tidal restlessness anyway?

I’ve mangled this quote before and I’ll mangle it again: the eulogy of New York has been written many times before, and it’s always been wrong.

The Secret to Happiness

Our regular reader(s) will know that despite being in existence for only a month, we have already covered the secret to happiness: https://www.highline28.com/journal/laminated-flyers-amp-the-secret-to-happiness. Cliff’s: you need to lower your expectations.

Well I’m happy to report that writers at The Atlantic are not only following this website by but stealing our ideas without attribution. From the March 2021 issue:

Strive for excellence, by all means. My God, please strive for excellence. Excellence alone will haul us out of the hogwash. But lower the bar, and keep it low, when it comes to your personal attachment to the world. Gratification? Satisfaction? Having your needs met? Fool’s gold. If you can get a buzz of animal cheer from the rubbishy sandwich you’re eating, the daft movie you’re watching, the highly difficult person you’re talking to, you’re in business. And when trouble comes, you’ll be fitter for it.

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/an-ode-to-low-expectations/617801/ (“An Ode to Low Expectations” by James Parker).

Indeed, James. Might I suggest posting some laminated flyers around to get your word out as well. You’ll have to individually wrap each one.