This isn’t the City I moved to.
I’ve always expected to live in New York City for as long as I remember; it’s where both of my parents are from, where I stole away as often as possible as a music-obsessed kid on Long Island, and the place I always came back to recharge for the twelve years I lived in DC. But now that Rachel and I live here, as much as I love it, I’m astonished every day by how fast it’s changing, and the place I knew is slipping away. So many things I thought could never change are changing, and often the city feels overrun, overpriced, and sometimes just over.
I’m sure this is something people have always felt in New York — the only thing that’s probably constant here is change, and the feeling that the city you imagined is somewhere else — but sometimes something just hits you in the gut. Like reading a few minutes ago that Pasticceria Bruno has closed down, or earlier this week that the Chelsea Hotel is getting Schragerized. A couple weeks before Christmas last year, I was walking down Bleecker Street and happened to pass by Bruno, and looking at the cookies in the window, felt my entire childhood coming back to me. On the way out to visit my parents for dinner for the holidays, I made a point to stop and pick up a couple of pounds of cookies and struffoli, honey balls like my great-Grandma Anna used to make. I knew my mom would get tears in her eyes when she saw them, and she did. I couldn’t believe my good fortune, that I lived in a city where I could still get something like this, something I remembered from almost thirty years ago, whenever I wanted. I figured I’d be going to Bruno’s, like the people double-parked that evening outside the bakery in cars and SUVs from every surrounding borough and state, to buy holiday cookies for the next thirty years, for sure.
Gone.
New York, I love you, but you’re bringing me down. Song of the year, so far, for sure.
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:27 pm
I can’t believe that’s happening to the Chelsea Hotel! I’m already making plans for a return trip so I can stay there before it’s ruined!
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:29 am
I could bore you to tears with my New York lamentations, but I shan’t.
It’s the people I miss most from New York. If you ever find yourself with a couple of hours to kill, this is a fascinating read:
http://jmisc.net/octo/octo-toc.htm
It’s a book written by an 80-year-old man who lived in the 1800’s, reflecting on how he watched New York City go from a post-colonial hive to a bustling industrial city.
It’s no literary feat, but if you enjoy New York history it’s a must-read. What is amazing is how many passages relate directly to today. In one he writes how a man who grew up in New York could leave for ten years and come back to barely recognize his neighborhood. Seems like that has always been New York’s modus operandi.
Of particular note is an image in the first chapter of the old stone bridge that was Broadway running over the Canal for which Canal Street is named. Simply amazing.