I’ll be honest, I despise New York City, not because I’m scared of crime (it felt incredibly safe to me), but because large parts of it aren’t a city, but are instead a series of obscene temples of capitalism
Now, full admission this was as a tourist so I had a very distorted exposure to the city. But like, everything was insanely expensive, everyone I met was some rich boomer or millennials who were mostly cool but clearly squeezed into a constantly hustling lifestyle just to stay afloat. I have a really strong memory of waiting in a line behind some older women bitching about “that asshole” (talking about trump), but then ending with “he’s been great for my investments though” and it just really exemplified American liberalism to me
I can see why one would think that visiting, and yes, there are large parts of Manhattan especially that are exactly what you’re describing, but it’s still a very small part of what goes on there. It’s expensive, but it’s also very diverse and working class.
Oh I totally believe that, I was only there for a very short time and did stereotypical tourist stuff which gives a super skewed experience. I will say the museums were great, and food options were amazing and totally possible to find affordable options if you were even slightly adventurous.
The wealth disparity was shocking though, and it was strange to me to see such an established city that still fully depended on migrant labour for its basic functioning if that makes sense?
Also Times Square is a portal to hell and no one should go there. We were warned by a local but went anyway and it was worse than I imagined
I’ll be honest, I despise New York City, not because I’m scared of crime (it felt incredibly safe to me), but because large parts of it aren’t a city, but are instead a series of obscene temples of capitalism
Now, full admission this was as a tourist so I had a very distorted exposure to the city. But like, everything was insanely expensive, everyone I met was some rich boomer or millennials who were mostly cool but clearly squeezed into a constantly hustling lifestyle just to stay afloat. I have a really strong memory of waiting in a line behind some older women bitching about “that asshole” (talking about trump), but then ending with “he’s been great for my investments though” and it just really exemplified American liberalism to me
I can see why one would think that visiting, and yes, there are large parts of Manhattan especially that are exactly what you’re describing, but it’s still a very small part of what goes on there. It’s expensive, but it’s also very diverse and working class.
Oh I totally believe that, I was only there for a very short time and did stereotypical tourist stuff which gives a super skewed experience. I will say the museums were great, and food options were amazing and totally possible to find affordable options if you were even slightly adventurous.
The wealth disparity was shocking though, and it was strange to me to see such an established city that still fully depended on migrant labour for its basic functioning if that makes sense?
Also Times Square is a portal to hell and no one should go there. We were warned by a local but went anyway and it was worse than I imagined
Yeah Times Square is deeply cursed