I think everyone comes to a point, living in an urban center, where they begin to detest certain things about it. What truly seemed like an oasis, has become a center for chain-stores, apathy, corporate thugs, inner-city thugs, hipster-thugs, post-grunge thugs, cycle-thugs, and the near soul-less consumers who can only be satisfied like junkies on the prowl [the chemical junkies are gathering spare-change for a lawsuit]. Therefore, I'm listing my reasons for the decline of NYC.
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1. Cost of living is too high. Its hard to believe there was a time when living in New York city was either cheap or very affordable; not just 50 years ago, but 10-5 years ago. The cost of residential living has risen sharply, while most salaries didn't. And while most are feeling the pinch - they are content to seek pleasure, after occasionally bitching [if only most had the testicular fortitude to take action]. The commercial sector may be even worse; many businesses aren't making enough to pay rent [fickle consumers always looking for the next trendy thing doesn't help either]. The store "Pearl River" will be moving after Dec 2014, from 477 Broadway due to rent its new rent: $500,000. Between North - Brooklyn [along Flatbush Ave] into Manhattan, many store's are closing, and the people don't seem worried.
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Decaying street-art from West 14th,
near Washington street. I think the "cost"
prints are by Adam Cost. |
2. Freedom & anything goes? But at the price of being held in contempt & excluded by those who don't agree; which creates more emotionally-scared, urban outcasts. Oddly enough this is what created the Hippy's & the Beats. Normally this is just life, but these day's each tribe or social-gang believe their way is right [which is poppy-cock]. I think most of us are closet fascists, bitching about a lack of freedom.
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| Street-art from Mercer street [artist(s) unknown] |
3. Great culture? Yes, there's all the culture stemming from museum's, galleries, art-spaces, plays, films, street-art and music performances. There's all the history of NYC, the rest of the country, the circumstance's that led to where we are now [yet most of us could-a-shit]. All on low-levels & high up as well; and yet, its drowning in a sea of collective ignorance & apathy. Too many would prefer shopping & entertainment.
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| Bushwick Brooklyn 2014. |
4. Diversity aplenty? What good is diversity when many are still too primitive to enjoy it? Okay, perhaps that was a tad-bit-harsh. While there are still too many, unwilling & can't deal with diversity, many more thrive on this aspect of our culture, further improving it. Although with every new social-group, lone-nut and tech-counsuming youth, those of us who knew low-rent NYC before starbucks are becoming afraid.
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Image from a print @ a cafe on Bushwick Ave near,
Montrose in Brooklyn [artist unknown] |
5. Ethnic melting pot? Blah, blah, f...ing-blah. Well... Not exactly. We melt in moments...on certain days, holidays and because we dress in a similar way. Together we buy products from the same companies that compete for our loyalties, though often can't or can barely look each other in the eye.
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| @ Saint Patrick's [during the renovations] |
6. Scruffy-bearded, tattooed young men & women with flannel shirts, tight pants, 20-30 keys hanging from their waist & full of attitude. Not sure what it is that makes so many of them hold people like me, and many others, in social contempt. Perhaps its the solid-color, button-down shirts and a clean-cut, non Hip-Hop, gangster Rap look confuses & makes them angry. They prowl NYC as if they embody the cultural sprit, when almost all of them moved here from the mid-west [with little originality, and a deep belief social prejudice].
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| Madison Ave, Manhattan, NYC. |
I understand that things changes, people change, as-do-cities. And yet, it seems too awful to comprehend; something out of a Hitchcock film. Or maybe I'm just getting old. 'Art is the reason, art is the way'
