NP: Chronic City

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The difference between Manhattan and the "authentic" (non-yuppified) boroughs mirrors the blue state/red state division to some extent.

Manhattan/Park Slope/Williamsburgh:  wealthy, educated, politically progressive, hip, insular, elitist, golden retrievers, cafe's, bookstores, cruelty-free, fair-trade, healthy.  

"Real" Brooklyn: less educated, desperately poor, working class, no future, closed-minded, intolerant, racist, homophobic, religious, pit-bulls, baseball bats-as-weapons, guns, ethnically mixed, boats, fishing, pick-up basketball, deep-fried food sold behind bullet-proof glass.  Clueless looks when Manhattan is mentioned.

Living in NYC gives you access to both.  Immersion in only one is stifling.

Laura



-----Original Message-----
>From: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
>Sent: Jun 25, 2009 9:18 AM
>To: malignd at aol.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: RE: NP: "Chronic City"
>
>Malignd sez:
>
>> I'm fond of the outer boroughs too and I certainly understand 
>> your sentiments, but as someone ?? said, it isn't necessarily 
>> either/or...
>
>I lived 15 years in Manhattan, 15 in Brooklyn, and I'm with you: *any* big
>city, certainly any world city, contains more worlds than any of us has time
>to savor. And to the extent that "frat town" and "society people" signify
>non-natives and aggressive money/status climbers, well... that's what cities
>have been about for a long, long time, drawing young optimists in from the
>sticks and enriching them, disillusioning them, or both. Meanwhile the
>real-estate wheel keeps gentrifying one neighborhood as another, formerly
>fashionable, slides downhill. 
>
>Cities that stop doing that -- cities full of Real [Cityname]ites who've
>lived there all their lives in stable, traditional neighborhoods -- are dead
>or dying.
>
>-Monte
>
>