“In the old days, Saturday was the destination night for chic New Yorkers headed to Studio 54 at its most resplendent,” [said Michael Musto, the longtime Village Voice night-life columnist.] “But things changed as more and more tri-staters were willing to use the bridges and tunnels for here-we-come Gotham weekends, so the locals started staying home and triple-bolting their doors as if in a George Romero film.”...Zombies! Clutter! The aversion to other people permeates human life. The wonder is that anyone ever ventures out at all. What riffraff is out there!
Last Saturday, four Manhattanites in their early 30s were huddling over a low table downstairs at Buddakan, the cavernous pan-Asian restaurant in the meatpacking district. “During the weekends, you get a lot of clutter, if you will,” said Brian Kirimdar, 30, an investment banker. He and his wife, Ashley, tend to hide out in restaurants on Saturdays, avoiding all but a few of the Chelsea clubs. “You don’t find too many bridge-and-tunnel people at Cielo or Marquee,” he said. “You really have to pick and choose.”
And yet they do go out. They go out and still imagine that they are hiding out in restaurants and only a few clubs.
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Cool Manhattanites -- statistically certain to be "Reality-based community" devotees -- show how progressive ideals work in practice. As long as one embraces Social Justice in the abstract, there's no need to embrace actual people from outside the cool bubble.
From the Article: "Jonathan Cheban, a publicist and a friend of Nicole Richie’s, . . ."
That’s such a cool way to get, like, you know, introduced: (1)name, (2) profession and (3) connectedness to celebrity greatness.
Does he have a business card that says that? "Jonathon Cheban." "Publicist." "Friend of Nicole Richie’s."
Maybe I’ll give it a try. "Bissage." "Attorney-at-Law." "Met Some Guy at a Party Who Said He Once Met a Guy Who Got So Drunk He Threw Up in David Cassidy's Car."
That’s. So. Cool.
And it's even true!!!!
Brian (the beleaguered Manhattanite) said:“You don’t find too many bridge-and-tunnel people at Cielo or Marquee,” he said. “You really have to pick and choose.”
I laughed because I immediately pictured zombies (Ann's imagery) walking trance-like across bridges and tunnels but they were all dressed up for a night out on the town!
Oh and I blame Rudy for ending NYC crime as we knew it. For Brian's sake, let's hope the Dems ruin the economy and crime will make a big comeback.
I know that we all need places in life where we can feel superior to others. But from the outside, this all looks just silly.
But then, I have never liked NYC, forming my opinion of the city pre-Guliani, and consider it the worst large city I have been stuck in.
I think the B&T crowd have the better of it - not living elbow to elbow with millions of others, but being able to easily benefit from their proximity to the attractions of NYC. So, no wonder the Manhatateenites dislike this so much - it puts into question their reasons for living in such an environment, since these intruders can gain the benefits of the City w/o many of the costs.
People who live in the cities and look down on people in the suburbs are not just jealous. They are really looking down on them. And they really do picture them as zombies. It's not just my image. It's in the article: "triple-bolting their doors as if in a George Romero film." And it's not just in the article. I remember this as a common insult 30 years ago. The people in the suburbs are zombies... and it was horrifying when they came into town.
I know exactly what the Manhattanites in this article are referring to. You don't necessarily have a problem with people from Long Island and New Jersey coming into town once a month to blow off steam, but you don't want to be in the room when it happens. Most people who live in New York avoid going out in midtown at all costs, because its where the tourists and "B&T" crowd hang out. Also, there are a million hairdressers and secretaries from the tri-state suburbs who go into the city dressed up to try to snag themselves an investment banker/lawyer/executive/pro athlete. It happens. As a mere law student I am exempt from it, but my brother and his friends find it annoying when some girl with a thick accent and big hair walks over, introduces herself, then starts to fawn all over them when she finds out what they do for a living. This sort of thing happens every saturday, if you go to certain bars.
I'm sure that Ann and all of her readers steer clear of at least one bar or restaurant in their hometown for the same reason -- you don't enjoy the company of its patrons.
Wow. I've never met anyone more parochial and ignorant than a Big City person.
Can people get any more self centered?
Yes, it is true. I confess. I now steer clear of some places in my hometown.
Too often, tacky people who were utterly beneath me would act kindly and wish to converse after they tricked me into disclosing my profession, income, marital status, penis size and intimate familiarity with David Cassidy. Too often, these social climbers were obese white chicks who worked as hairdressers and secretaries. How I loathed them and their awful, awful thick accents and big hair!
These low-lifes were unintelligent by nature and wholly uneducated and that is why they failed to comprehend that they were of absolutely no use whatsoever to someone such as myself.
But fear not. I was charitable and would explain to them, making full use of their own gutter patois (so they could understand), that there are immutable rules that control these sorts of things and that they would do better to set their sights lower. Sometimes there really wasn't the time so I'd make a big display of pointing at them and say loud enough so all could hear, "You?! Don't make me laugh."
But too many times, even this did not work. So now I stay away from those sorts of places. And it's all worked out for the best for all concerned.
Is there no end to reasons for looking down on other people?
Fat, gay, breeding status, religious (or not), looks, geography, politics, finances, uncoolness, even bad taste (subjectively defined, of course). Blah blah blah. It's always something--and so loudly and proudly!--world without end.
Yeah, yeah, yeah: I'll nominate myself for the Stupid Question Of The Week (Month? Year? My Lifetime) Award.
Oh, please. Everybody west of the Hudson loves to criticize New Yorkers for thinking they are above everybody else. Of course, NOBODY outside of New York EVER thinks they're above ANYBODY in New York. My bad.
Look, let's say there are five bars in your neighborhood, each of which caters to a different crowd. Why do you choose to go to one over another? One might cater to college kids, who are too loud and too drunk for your taste. A martini bar might be too stuffy for your taste. And so on. People go to certain bars for a reason, and people avoid certain other bars for a reason. Your reasons for doing so are no more high-minded than these New Yorkers.
“The Spotted Pig is not cool on Saturdays,” said Ken Friedman, an owner of the restaurant. On Saturdays, Mr. Friedman said, tourists and suburbanites routinely trek in and wait in line hoping for a glimpse of a celebrity huddled over sheep’s ricotta gnudi."
I've lived in four cities other than New York. This is the sort of thing that happens in New York, but nowhere else east of LA. So until this starts happening in Madison, Wisconsin, then you won't really know what it feels like. This isn't 1980 New York City anymore.
Ha! The natives sound ridiculously high on themselves. Yet, growing up in Hawaii, I would have rather jabbed hot needles into my eye than be caught dead anywhere tourists could be found. So, hmmm...I'll just triple-bolt the door on my glass house.
Shanna,
That's fair. A lot of New Yorkers are snobs. I generally agree with your comments . . . But, living in Madison, I've seen a lot of reverse snobbery -- far more than most people from the midwest would like to admit. The article makes a couple of go dpoints that I think are perfectly fair:
1) saturday night in New York is a big event for people from the suburbs, whereas for New Yorkers, it is merely Saturday. Sometimes you just want to go out and have a drink, and you don't want to deal with the bachelor and bachelorette parties, 21st birthdays, or Big Nights Out that the rest of the tri-state area has planned.
2) New Yorkers have to deal with large crowds and long lines on a regular basis. There are some neighborhoods where you never have to wait in line on friday night, because the only people there are New Yorkers. These same bars are full of people on saturday night, and most of them live outside of the city. New Yorkers know to avoid those bars on saturday night.
3) My hairdresser comment was probably misinterpreted. The article quotes one club owner who has a "no cologne, no earings, no hairgel" admission policy on saturday nights. I know EXACTLY what he means. Native New Yorkers don't dress like that when they go out, and if they do, they don't try to go to the trendy bars. But for people from the suburbs, that's how they dress up when they go out. I know this because I grew up with these people.
4) Nightclubs are in the business of selling atmosphere, of selling coolness. If that is so unattractive to people, then they can stay home and get drunk and dance in their apartment. Instead, people want to go out, and when they go out, they want to go somewhere cool. Nightclubs have the right to keep themselves from being made uncool by people who don't understand the unspoken rules.
This problem is far worse in Chicago. The farmioli suburbanites there are fatter, have more pronounced and utterly disgusting accents, and lack even a rudimentary knowledge of how to cross a street and which portion of a sidewalk to use. This can make life very unpleasant. Manhattanites have it easy!
New York on Sunday,
Big City taking a nap!
Slow down, it's Sunday!
Life's a ball, let it fall in your lap!
If you've got troubles,
Just take them out for a walk.
They'll burst like bubbles
In the fun of a Sunday In New York!
You can spend time without spending a dime,
Watching people watch people pass!
Later you pause, and in one of those stores
There's that face next to yours in the glass!
Two hearts stop beating,
You're both too breathless to speak!
Love smiles her greeting,
Then the dream that has seen you thru the week
Comes true on Sunday In New York!
ann,
this article is not true. its another fake NYT "trend." they come up with these periodically.
nobody is "hiding" from the B & T crowd except, perhaps, the few individuals quoted in the article who probably happen to be friends of the journalist who dreamed up this trend.
cheers.
But if it's a fake trend, then what are we to make of Wade and Dave?
It does kind of strike me how... old-fashioned all this sounds. Sneering at "big hair" and "hair gel" is so 80's. The period that I associate with clubbing on weekends, feeling it important to be seen only in "cool" clubs and restaurants, and feeling above "shallow" suburbanites is about twenty years ago.
That damn b&t set has been around for nearly 80 years now. Generation after generation of folks wiht beehive hairdos and stinky cologne trying to rub elbows with the rich, famous and their pretenders.
And to think they could be mixed up with the slumdwellers of the Bowery, Hell's Kitchen, Harlem, etc., who knew their place well enough not to venture into the cool places on Saturday night.
OHMIGOD.
nobody is "hiding" from the B & T crowd except, perhaps, the few individuals quoted in the article who probably happen to be friends of the journalist who dreamed up this trend.
Bullshit. Plenty of us are hiding from the B&T crowd. The Meatpacking District on Saturday Night is more crowded than Time Square. No cool New Yorker would be caught dead there, unless you're going to Florent at 3 a.m.
We don't think of people from the suburbs as Zombies. We just know that they are tacky and uncool. How do we know they're tacky and uncool? Because they don't live in New York.
You do have to pick carefully about where to go on Saturday. Personally, I prefer to go to Brooklyn on the weekends, which is a hell of lot more authentic.
But places like the Lower East Side are a hell of lot more authentic on a Tuesday night than on a Saturday night. Who wants to hang out with riff-raff?
I've noticed some of that anti-suburb bigotry in Chicago, too, although mostly among hiply progressive North Siders. Ordinary Chicagoans have more sense.
I've noticed some of that anti-suburb bigotry in Chicago, too
I'm an anti-suburban bigot. But lets not forget that people from the suburbs are anti-city bigots as well. I've gotten many condescending looks from relatives when I tell people that I live in the city. And politicians frequently use anti-city slurs against city people, i.e. "San Francisco values", etc. (I guess tolerance is a big no-no....)
But I don't care, since I know that I'm better than them, and they're too clueless to figure out that they're just a bunch of hicks who live in a place with zero culture. Heck - they don't even know what culture is. So I ignore them. And if I don't have to interact with them - all the better.
Thankfully, the prairie folk tourists who migrate into the city of Chi-town for a good time tend to confine themselves to the lame tourist-centric establishments along the Magnificent Mile and in Streeterville, such as Dick's Last Resort. I don't think they've discovered Wicker Park, Bucktown, Old Town, or Andersonville, so the cityfolk don't need to hibernate on weekends...yet.
I wonder if the foie gras ban in the city has led to a coolification of the suburbs, leading the zombie suburbanites to avoid contact. I wouldn't know, because I'd rather gouge out my eyes w/the fork that I would otherwise use to eat the foie gras rather than spending time in a wretched suburb!
And we need to have a broader definition of suburb, because in my book, anyone living north of 23rd street on the East side and north of 59th street on the West Side lives in the suburbs.
I am tired of Upper East and Upper West Siders invading my neighborhood. I don't go to their neighborhood, they shouldn't come to mine.
ultimate_lawyer said:
"This problem is far worse in Chicago. The farmioli suburbanites there are fatter, have more pronounced and utterly disgusting accents, and lack even a rudimentary knowledge of how to cross a street and which portion of a sidewalk to use."
Ah, yes, Chicago, where signs at intersections remind the locals to obey their own traffic signals rather than the signals for oncoming traffic. But surely this is really all just Vern & Myrtle Iowa's fault...
I wish people would respond more to the broader issue in the post: "The aversion to other people permeates human life. The wonder is that anyone ever ventures out at all. What riffraff is out there!"
Personally, I'm less concerned with how much NYers hate suburbanites than I am with how we all have an aversion to other people, aside from our little favored group. This isn't anything special about NYers, but a human quality, often innocuous, but sometimes the worst thing there is.
You laugh, Kim, but Vern & Myrtle Iowa do not a straw man make! I regularly have to do the bob-and-weave just to get around them en route to work in the morning. Not only are they HUGE, but they insist on walking at a tortoise's pace down the middle of the sidewalk, conveniently holding hands connecting their unnecessarily outstretched arms, thus blocking the entire flow of pedestrian traffic. Vern & Myrtle Iowa scare the hell out of me, and they have no place in American cities.
"I am tired of Upper East and Upper West Siders invading my neighborhood. I don't go to their neighborhood, they shouldn't come to mine.
Some think themselves cosmopolitan, when all they really are is tribal.
"Personally, I'm less concerned with how much NYers hate suburbanites than I am with how we all have an aversion to other people, aside from our little favored group."
Yes, that is true, and I think it reflects a new tribalism born of over-weening self-importance and self-indulgence.
But that's human nature Ann. It's natural to stick with people from your own tribe.
It's not like I have anything to learn from these people. Their hair styles are 10 years old. They think Italian food is exotic. They think Banana Republic is the epitome of fashion.
Life is too short. Why waste time with these people?
Now of course not "everyone" from the suburbs are bad people. I mean some of my best friends live in the suburbs. But they are not the riffraff invading our city on the weekends either.
I think people know what we're talking about when we say B&T. They are the people who come into the city to hang out with their own kind, and make zero effort to absorb the culture around them. They are 18-25 years old and are likely to hail from Staten Island (a borough of the city by the way). Of course people from the city avoid them. Heck - most people from the suburbs avoid them.
I'll relay a story.
One of my really good friends for 20 years recently visited the city for the weekend.
He wanted to meet for brunch and insisted on doing so at a hotel in Times Square. The horror!!!
I'm sorry - but people must have their convictions. You have to stand up for what's right.
So of course I have no dumped this friend. I don't think I could live with myself if I hadn't.
Times Square!!!
dtl: "It's natural to stick with people from your own tribe."
That's what the worst people in the history of the world would say.
The outsiders have nothing to teach us. I can tell by just looking at them.
Are you lofty for thinking such a thing... or low?
Are you lofty for thinking such a thing... or low?
I'm just acknowledging human nature. I want to hang out with people I enjoy hanging out with.
I don't hang out with people to "learn" things form them. I hang out with them to have fun. And it's much easier to have fun with people who share the same interests.
I have my 20 good friends. I don't really need any others.
dtl: So you're justifying feelings that are natural? Then you'll have to give up on complaining about all the people who hate gay people!
I don't complain about them. People are completelyh allowed to dislike gays.
But I get annoyed when they don't admit it. I'm honest about my own bigoted tendencies towards certain groups (evangelicals, Conserviatve Catholics, etc.) They should be honest with theirs. But it is unjust when they write that bigotry into laws.
I'm perfectly aware that the vast majority of this country doesn't like gay people. But why should I have to like them back? I don't - and I avoid them. Life's too short for me to waste my time with them.
I may look down upon teenagers from Staten Island invading my neighborhood on the weekend, but I don't pass laws that stop them from doing so (even though I may joke about that). I'm very tolerant of them. But that doesn't mean I have to partake in their activities.
I wish they would show me the same tolerance in return instead of passing laws that micromanage my personal life.
By the way - all joking aside - I don't want people to get the impression that New Yorkers are cultural snobs. They want their city to be authentic.
My friends are probably more diverse than 99% of most groups of friends out there. I'm pretty much the only gay person amongst my group of friends. They hail from ten different countries, and cut across most racial and religious divides. And my weekend will usually consist of something like Korean Bar-b-q and then singing Karaoke until 3 a.m.
I don't see why I have an obligation to go out of my way to be super-nice to visitors. I'll be civil if they me for directions. But why should I have to engage them and learn from them? They're 15 years younger than me anyway. That's just silly.
And if they're acting silly, then I am allowed to think that. I rarely voice that publicly unless they are being really obnoxious. I'm sure they make their own comments about me and my friends. I work in technology and they probably think we're a bunch of geeks. So what. We are.
"I don't want people to get the impression that New Yorkers are cultural snobs."
Um... okay. Is it your intention to replace it with the impression that New Yorkers are really angry, hate-filled jackasses?
Well Paco - At least we're not fat.
"singing Karaoke until 3 a.m."
The horror!
DTL, your posts are not logically consistent. First you complain that the unsophisticated suburban masses want to micromanage your life with their primitive theocratic notions. Then you make these blanket statements indicating that the suburban foe all deserve to be vaporized from the face of the earth. If you want to be respected for who you are, logically you must concede the suburbanites an equal respect for who they are, big hair and all.
Hasn't "live and let live" always been a core value of urbanity?
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
-- Yogi Berra
"I'm perfectly aware that the vast majority of this country doesn't like gay people. But why should I have to like them back?"
Because, despite your alienation, you're a great deal more like them than you care to admit; militant anger does nothing to persuade minds to see things through your eyes unless, of course, you're into self-fulfilling prophesies.
Think Martin Luther King, Jr. rather than Malcolm X.
Then you make these blanket statements indicating that the suburban foe all deserve to be vaporized from the face of the earth.
Please show me where I've said that.
I said they are annoying and wish they wouldn't come to my city. But as long as they do, I'm going to avoid them. That IS a "live and let live" attitude.
militant anger does nothing to persuade minds to see things through your eyes
Um - I'm not angry at anyone. And your saying say doesn't make it so. I choose to mock people and denigrate them when appropriate - but that is not anger. That is what I do when I'm bored.
I thought I'd do a simple word substitution on something downtownlad wrote:
"Now of course not 'everyone' with dark skin are bad people. I mean some of my best friends are black But they are not the riffraff invading our city either."
Makes you think.
Pst314 - Is your point that I look down on people from the suburbs?
Learn to read. I've already admitted that.
It does seem to be human nature to, in general, prefer to socialize with people with similar interests, likes and dislikes, and values. (Especially values, since these are fundamental to our feeling whether we can trust somebody to do right in whatever situations occur.)
However, it is stifling and bigoted to regard people who are different as having "nothing to offer." Illiterate peasants are capable of showing great friendliness to strangers and interest in who they are and where they are from, even though they may, for example, have absolutely no interest in converting from Buddhism to Mormonism. In my experience, ordinary folks in the various working class neighborhoods of Chicago are far more open and willing to take people as they are than downtownlad is.
Oh--and what is with this myth that city people are so much better than suburban people? By whatever measure, the claim is absurd. For instance, although I could run up the lake to Evanston to hang out at Northwestern University, I could also walk to neighborhoods with serious gang presence and lots of badly behaved people.
"Personally, I'm less concerned with how much NYers hate suburbanites than I am with how we all have an aversion to other people, aside from our little favored group."
Ann, Do you mean the phenomenon of tribalism in general, or are you pondering why we seem to be seeing an increase in tribalism in what is supposed to be a cosmopolitan, multicultural society?
I'm glad you reiterated the question, because it's one I want to think about.
in general.
Ann, your tribal maybe my “Comfort Zone”. I myself am not a big fan of crowds of folks I don’t know. If I have to do it I can, but I would rather spend time with people I know rather than meeting new people.
I can relate to the New York Attitude in one respect. There is a bar nearby that I enjoy spending time, but every so often the place becomes overrun with strangers to the point where I can’t hear the jukebox or get close enough to the bar to get a cold beer. These folks are suburban ‘zombies’ too, but they headed out to the country for a night of fun, and not into the city.
Same type of folks, same annoyance, different location.
Speaking of tribalisms; I have also noticed these folks don’t travel alone, but in packs.
They have no intention of meeting a new tribe, but drag their tribe along to invade enemy territory. I (the enemy) have the choice of ceding my territory, or fighting for it. Apparently I am not alone if ceding, if only temporarily, my territory to the invading hordes.
"Um - I'm not angry at anyone. And your saying say doesn't make it so. I choose to mock people and denigrate them when appropriate - but that is not anger. That is what I do when I'm bored."
"But I don't care, since I know that I'm better than them, and they're too clueless to figure out that they're just a bunch of hicks who live in a place with zero culture. Heck - they don't even know what culture is. So I ignore them. And if I don't have to interact with them - all the better."
Sorry for confusing your attitude with anger - what was I thinking?
Regardless, any 40+ year-old man who spends time ordering his life around who is cool and who isn't (if you really dumped one of your "really good friends for 20 years" simply because he wanted to go to Times Square, you did him a big favor) is awfully shallow, needs to grow up and get over himself.
Really. You're absurd.
downtownlad,
are you really 40? i could have sworn you were 15.
i will amend my earlier post. nobody, except for the journalists' friends and dtl, actively avoid the B and T crowd.
and many "cool" new yorkers go to the meat packing district. who do you think is buying all those bottles?
I agree with Ann that is not a benign development that people now choose to stay within their "tribe."
It begins with little things. When I walk into a store run by Asians or Hispanics in their (actively segregated) neighborhood, I get stared down.
As for the sophisticated city elites, you only have to look at hundreds of movies culminating in the loathsome American Beauty to know what they think of the rest of us.
It ends with a new definition of politics: balkanizing political activists lobbying for government largesse for their "communities." How can anyone say this is good?
I think that anyone who reads this article and actually thinks that the people outlined in the article are truly representative of the general public here in NY is out of their minds.
Most New Yorkers don't hang out at Buddakan or at clubs in Chelsea on "some nights". But we do avoid going out on Saturday ngiht in particular because there are simply too many people out.
Plain and simple, why should I go to one of my neighborhood bars on a saturday night when it takes 20 minutes just to get a drink when I could come back on thursday night and sit at a table with friends and you know, actually hear what they have to say?
Even the crowd that comes in jsut on the weekends would probably agree with that, except that there are more things to do in New York than say, Hicksville Long Island. So they come in on Saturday night and have fun, and yell and puke all over the neighborhood and then when they leave, the locals hang out.
I wish downtownlad would get banned from this site. I don't think you could collect more worthlessly self-indulgent, hate-filled comments if you tried.
I am NOT 40.
And face it Knoxgirl - you just want to silence me because I'm a gay man with an opinion.
You can't find one hateful comment by me if you tried. Opinionated yes. Hateful no.
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