i gave tours of Manhattan and some of Brooklyn some years ago and im doing them again. hopefully not for long the job is a fucking nightmare. anyway it's interesting seeing what's happened to Manhattan and seeing reading the differences of Brooklyn.
so much of Manhattan's been gentrified now, and now so much of it looks the same. the stores, the people. how many ethnic neighborhoods have gone forever? been priced out? same with artists' neighborhoods? again, price. how many neighborhoods have Duane Reads and Starbucks now? and Subway (not the real subway, but the tasteless sandwiches) is making a surge. again you see the connection: high prices and conformity. you can't beat them so march in the shadows of their golden hinds.
but what suffers? New York magazine ranked the neighborhoods of New York city recently. most of the top ones were in Brooklyn. rankings based on price, schools, crime, transportation, leisure etc.
they wrote that a neighborhood like the West village would've been number one but it's so expensive. the West village, home to a genesis of the modern gay rights movement, off Broadway theater, folk music, Saint Vincent's helping the poor. now it has limousine liberals like Susan sarandon working on her "blood type diet" (i was on a set once where she was talking about it while holding her little dog which seemed like it would fit better in the arms of someone like Paris Hilton), and sticking her nose up at St Vincent's while it closes. the neighborhood also reportedly has the most expensive zip code in the nation. i also haven't seen nearly as many rainbow flags (or fags) as in the past, unfortunately.
get rid of the "different'" folks, your future artists, American citizens, and put up your Starbucks?
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