WaPo Reports: New Yorkers consider abandoning New York

“The ’rona sat every New Yorker down and legit asked that question everyone knows from tired job interviews: Where do you see yourself in five years?” said Sandy José Nuñez, 31, a bartender hoping to pivot toward opening a jujitsu gym. “You have plenty of time now to step up to a solid answer.”

But there is no universal answer. The pandemic has laid bare the inequities of who gets to go and who has to stay, of who lives and who dies. The average rent in Manhattan began the year at a record high of $4,210 a month, while Queens and the Bronx, the boroughs hardest-hit by covid-19, were also on a decade-long upswing. In February, discussing the state’s $2.3 billion revenue shortfall, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said, sincerely, “God forbid if the rich leave.” But 420,000 of the city’s wealthiest residents did go, gutting marquee neighborhoods now facing up to 40 percent vacancy.

“I’m a born-and-raised, do-or-die New Yorker because it was always a party,” said Giovanni Cassinelli, 44, a dog walker who was an acolyte of the late nightlife legend Willi Ninja, “but the party is over.” He’s heading to an unincorporated mountain town in Nevada. “I’m not getting my city back,” he said. “So I’m leaving before it gets to the point that I can’t get my mind back.”

Such responses represent a major departure from previous citywide crises, when New Yorkers mostly rolled with the punches with fuhgeddaboudit humor and go-big-or-go-home tenacity. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for instance, “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels famously asked then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, “Can we be funny?” to which Giuliani countered, “Why start now?” Eleven years later, when Hurricane Sandy knocked out electricity in half of Manhattan, the running gag was that the city’s trendiest new neighborhood had become SoPo, South of Power.

This novel coronavirus, by contrast, has brought with it a novel reckoning. At the start of April, Shari, 33, born and raised in Queens, had to step away from her career as a social worker, even though her profession is essential. She declined to provide her last name, citing privacy concerns. Her job entailed home visits with 2-year-olds with autism, and last year all that close contact landed her in the hospital with pneumonia. The day she received an email from her employer urging workers to hound their clients — many of them overwhelmed parents from underserved communities — and rack up billable hours, she quit.

That email came the night before her grandmother died of covid-19, under the watch of a nursing home in Queens that, she said, wouldn’t help Shari’s family stay in touch with their matriarch. She has been thinking a lot about the 60-acre ranch in California where her grandmother grew up. “I can see the horizon there and it’s just quiet, the earth smells different,” she said. She has been looking into apprenticeships for black farmers upstate and considering moving somewhere more affordable, like New Jersey, “even though that was like my lifelong thing — ‘I’ll never go to New Jersey.’ ”

For families with young children the incentive to go, or stay and get creative, the calculus has turned urgent. Julia Febiger, 39, gave birth to her first child a week and a half before the first coronavirus case in New York state was confirmed. “It was just a lot with this fragile, vulnerable newborn,” she said, particularly because she also had postpartum anxiety that she thinks was exacerbated by the pandemic. “I was terrified. I felt like we were under attack.”

She and her husband headed to Massachusetts to be close to relatives. They’re looking at houses in small towns along the Hudson River in Upstate New York, which real estate agents say are selling hours after they go on the market, with other emigres from the city sometimes paying full price in cash after seeing the houses only on video tours.

Parenting message boards across gentrified Brooklyn are filled with questions about where to shop for groceries safely, or what to do if you took your kids to school via public transportation. There’s a closed Facebook group with more than 3,000 members called Into the Unknown, “for those of us who have decided or are considering — willingly or otherwise — to join the exodus from NYC to greener pastures, as it were,” the description reads.

Faced with a June 30 deadline to renew the lease on their two-bedroom duplex in Brooklyn, Naomi Mersky, 44, and her husband decided to bail. “We know we’re lucky that we have options,” she said, but they also couldn’t keep paying rent indefinitely if their kids, ages 5 and 9, didn’t feel safe. They’ve bought chickens and are looking into starting the next school year in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, where they’re living in a summer cabin they own.

Krista Sudol, 42, a mother to two young children who just lost her job in fashion “and possibly my career,” summed up the zeitgeist bluntly: “I love New York so much I could cry, but for the first time ever, it feels all wrong.”

For many artists who came to the city to make it big and wound up waiting tables, the city’s promise that hustle and paying dues leads to achieving your dreams is starting to feel like a broken contract.

Almost five years to the day that he began his career as a comedian, Kevin Delano, 28, finally gained a prestigious turning point: membership on a house team at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, the legendary launchpad for actress Amy Poehler and hundreds of others. He performed once. Then the shutdown happened.

“There’s no Plan B,” he said. “I hadn’t decided to throw in the towel but the towel got thrown at me.” During the shutdown, something changed. Seeing “Saturday Night Live” star Aidy Bryant filming sketches from her bedroom felt like an equalization, he said, inspiring him to double down on his digital comedic output.

But for Delano, the pause of city life has been a tectonic shift deeper than a career pivot. “The strangers on my street became my neighbors. We leave baked goods on each other’s stoops,” he said. “And I’ve become the Jared Kushner of sewing: Whatever I learn, I feel like I invented it. . . . I have more space for myself, to find out who I am. I don’t want to go back. My girlfriend says she feels five years younger.”

Andre Urban, 38, was already a voracious learner and life experimentalist before the pandemic, as an actor who also does wedding photography and shoots music videos. The shutdown has brought about what he calls his “metamorphosis.” He used to wake up about 11 a.m. Now he’s up at dawn and has loaded his schedule with self-improvement: meditation, self-help books, Spanish lessons, video editing courses, voice lessons and guitar lessons — all before lunch. “The whole world has changed, so why not me, too? I spent 15 years prioritizing work. This is my time.”

Some artists left town and accidentally found a new home. Kevin Hertzog, 55, a set designer and Gays Against Guns activist, absconded to a friend’s mother’s cabin three hours north of the city because he’s HIV-positive and recently had cancer, so is immunosuppressed. Long walks in the woods with his dog inspired him to look for property — and he has found houses selling for just $50,000. “I’ve started to look back at my New York life in a new light,” he said. “It seems analogous to seeing images of planet Earth from the moon for the first time. Suddenly, I could see a bigger picture.”

For some, an onslaught of life changes forced the decision. Since March, Nancy Lee, 39, has lost her job in marketing (because of internal reshuffling, not coronavirus-related unemployment), confirmed she’s pregnant, gotten engaged and hunkered down with her fiance — who is also out of work — and their pug, Biggie, in an East Village studio apartment. “It’s just resonating that I think it’s my time to leave New York,” Lee said. “The value of living here is the way of life. And if the sexiness has worn off, then why pay the expensive price tag?”

Lee, who is Chinese American, said she has been harassed at least three times by a man on a bicycle screaming about Chinese people and covid-19, part of a larger racist movement blaming Asians for the virus. “I didn’t know it was directed at me, but as I got closer, he said it over and over,” she said. She’s considering a move to suburban Philadelphia, where she grew up and her parents still live.

The reassessments aren’t only personal. Sometimes they’re business-driven. In the wake of citywide closures of Chinese takeout spots — which were teetering on extinction already — Beichen Hu, director of special projects at Junzi Kitchen, has pivoted the modern fast-casual Chinese local chain to develop comfort food classics, such as sausage fried rice and egg drop soup — all of which are hard to find now that 70 percent of Chinese restaurants citywide have closed. “I would never expect this,” he said. “But nobody has expected anything this year.”

And reassessments mean something else for essential workers. When she stopped feeling safe riding the subway, Yessenia Alvarez, 41, bought a bike, which she carries up and down three flights of stairs and rides nine miles (and back) from her home in Queens to run a skeleton crew at Rahi, a stylish Indian restaurant in posh Greenwich Village, in the shadow of a 161-year-old hospital that was turned into million-dollar condos. If she didn’t work, the restaurant wouldn’t be open, a loss not just to its customers but also to the 250 needy recipients of meals it delivers every day.

She and her husband, Julio, a police officer, don’t have the privilege of grand reassessments, like Rahi’s wealthy neighbors who fled. “We came here to live here, so that’s what we are going to do,” said Alvarez, who immigrated from the Dominican Republic in 2006.

Asked about those neighbors, she said she was more disappointed than mad. “They left their servants to fight for themselves. Think about that,” she said, but then quickly focused on the bright spots, such as the elderly couple who come by weekly and buy about $200 worth of food. “They say they want to support us,” she said. “It’s hopeful. You have to not think only about yourselves. You have to think and live in a different way.”

New York ain't for sissies. Adios!

Not New Yorkers. Transplants. We’ve been spitting them out for centuries.

Why would an adult who is not a student consent to living without a washer and dryer in their home? It seems indicative of mental issues. It’s time to stop playing make-believe in Oz and time to start living a normal life in America.

R6 ‘s family settled New York fresh off the Mayflower.

Unfortunately there is one group of transplants that have not been spit out yet... Whiteys who stole the island from Native Americans.

That is my 'breaking point". After Grad School, moving to NYC for work...if the didn't have a "washer-dryer", I wasn't renting the Apt. No, not happening.

There will be a story next year about how all the people who left NYC to live 3 hours away in a quiet cabin have come pouring back into the city because they were so bored.

Once they come up with a vaccine and it's 100% safe to travel on mass transit and sit in crowded restaurants, the city will fill up again. But that may be a year or two away.

Escape From New York...call Kurt Russell!

R11 HIV/AIDS took 15 years for decent treatments and 30 for preventative and it’s not airborne...

Dream on.

When I can get a Manhattan 700 dollar studio I will move there in a flash.

HIV was pretty much 100% lethal in its early years R13. Covid is not.

She thinks washing machines became standard in the 1970's? Is she from Uzbekistan?

R15 how does that change the possibility of coming up with a treatment for a virus?

[quote] to travel on mass transit

Fucking STOP this idiocy.

It’s not funny

It’s not a datalounge “in joke” it’s just stupid.

Bad journalism.

Rather than finding the sort of people who are legitimately thinking of leaving--families with kids who chose the co-op in Park Slope over the house in the burbs, the piece focuses on unemployed dog-walkers and the like.

I suspect we will see an outpouring of those types to suburbia, especially as their white collar jobs switch to "you can mostly work at home" and they realize that the more upscale burbs are not that much less hip as the overgentrified NYC neighborhoods they left.

Has she not been using a laundromat all her time in the city before covid? I’m sitting in a fairly empty Harlem laundromat as I type this - covid hasn’t changed laundry at all - every 3 weeks you load up the granny cart and go do 4 loads at the same time. And you read a book (or DL) so you are there to unload your machine as soon as it’s done - that is just common courtesy. Lots of folks have legit reasons for deciding if they should stay or go but Laundry Girl sounds like a whiny, entitled Karen.

Giovanni can come stay with me. I have a 2 bedroom in Chelsea with a laundry/ pantry nook and immediate access to the Highline elevated park.

[quote] Rather than finding the sort of people who are legitimately thinking of leaving--families with kids who chose the co-op in Park Slope over the house in the burbs, the piece focuses on unemployed dog-walkers and the like.

Because they’re either friends of the writer or people who live in the same building as the writer. I’ve known a few writers for newspapers & magazines & they don’t delve deep for articles like this. “We wanna talk about people who are scared & thinking about leaving NY. Find some.”

Writer makes a list of questions, emails them to friends. Sits back, waits for responses.

Alternatively, walk down the street & buttonhole hip looking people with kind faces. “Excuse me. I’m from The NY Times writing an article about NYers. Have you thought about leaving the city lately?”

There will undoubtedly be a story about a woman who had visited Hudson on a sunny summer day last summer & thought it was adorable, She loved the look of the place & it’s artiness. So she left her apartment in NY & moved to Hudson to open a vegan muffin shop that’s also an art gallery. After a year, she missed her friends & the dog run in Central Park. It was no fun shoveling the snow from the sidewalk in front of her muffin shop. She felt like she was missing out. She decided she’ll just have to use every cent of her annual income from the family trust fund and head back to NY to resume her freelance writing career among the cheerier winter atmosphere of downtown NYC.

[quote] it’s artiness

Its

Did NYT do this exact same article a few months ago?

You know, more than any other development, it is the internet that will change NYC. This pandemic is the catalyst for the whole formalizing of work from home. There is now no need to BE in NYC if you can work remotely.

[quote] how does that change the possibility of coming up with a treatment for a virus?

You can not compare HIV to the Coronavirus.

For starters, because its airborne, as you say, that makes it extremely easy to catch, which means anyone can catch it, not just those who are sexually active. But the bigger reason is simply the economics of it. Forget small potatoes like restaurants and the like. No professional sports teams (as of now) can have fans at their stadium. That’s HUGE money in America. People can’t visit their parents or grandparents or family members who may be vulnerable.

Unlike HIV, I can test negative today for the Coronavirus and, having done nothing other than go to the grocery store, be positive tomorrow and unknowingly inoculate several people, who then go on to inoculate others, and so on.

With HIV, if you test negative and abstain, or at least abstain from unsafe sex, the chances of getting it are slim. This thing you can get walking to your mailbox or going to do laundry.

New York is the center of everything!

Well, it does kind of suck that the landlord broke in and stole her washer/dryer.

What’s that you say? He didn’t and it wasn’t there when she moved in?

Stop complaining, cunt.

That actually happened after 911, r10. There was a big influx into the Hudson Valley and a few years later a big outflow. Most people don't understand that rural living is a commitment, particularly if you're used to living in a city.

Yes, R30, they can throw away their anti-depressants and stop thinking about suicide.

Sez you R31. Nothing sets me more on edge than being in a rural area. Different strokes, et cetera...

Except, r31, that's not what happened, which is what makes your post irrelevant.

[quote] Why would an adult who is not a student consent to living without a washer and dryer in their home? It seems indicative of mental issues. It’s time to stop playing make-believe in Oz and time to start living a normal life in America

It's not like we have to go down to the river and beat the clothes against a rock.

I live in NYC and our building has a laundry room in the basement. We have an elevator. It's rarely crowded (especially nowadays). On the list of things that drive me crazy about New York, not having a washer and dryer in the apartment is waaaaay down the list

[quote]Oh, and I'm ancient (63)

And you type poor.

That won't happen.

R10 and R30 are right.

I was here during 9/11 and remember the stories about people moving upstate, to the suburbs, etc., seeking "safety" and questioning the value of living in NYC.

A lot of those people came back, followed by more people. And soon the city was more crowded, elitist and wealth-focused than before.

Hopefully the frau's who invade gay male spaces like they were visiting the zoo will be among those New Yorkers leaving New York!

[quote] Hopefully the frau's who invade

The frau’s what, though?

[quote]You know, more than any other development, it is the internet that will change NYC. This pandemic is the catalyst for the whole formalizing of work from home. There is now no need to BE in NYC if you can work remotely.

Give it a while and working from home will be the catalyst for being back around people, in a city and in an office.

For many, working from home wears thin pretty quickly.

For many SINGLE PEOPLE working from home wears thin pretty quickly.

For anyone with a family, women in particular, all I keep hearing is how much better it is, how they don't have to stress about getting home in time for the nanny or the day care and all that.

Ditto people who have big commutes in places like NY, LA and SF--they say they are getting back two full hours a day

R41, I agree but I'm hearing it from the dads. They're learning how to get things done quickly and efficiently and still get time to ride bikes with their kids or have a glass of wine on their porch with their wives. They're not complaining about the lack of commute at all.

The main problem is far too many people move to NYC who CAN NOT AFFORD TO LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY. When you stupidly try to live above your means you almost always lose.

R43...say it louder for the people in the back. Truthbomb.com

I think you'll find cities and states offer companies tax incentives to have people come back to the office. I don't think people understand how interconnected our economy is. Office environments support surrounding businesses.

The people with the more masturbatory jobs might find that post-rona nobody wants to spend their money on a Harry Potter Yoga Class or a clay mould of their cat's vagina. Too many mediocre artists, digital marketing types and vague non-profits are being exposed as not necessary

NY is an unlivable shithole. No one wants to live there.

R46, judging from the morons flocking to the newly opened casinos, I wouldn't bet on that one.

R43 That's true but missing the big picture... any city will grind to a halt if it loses lower-paid workers with jobs such as restaurant servers, janitors, etc. Yes, NYC is expensive and you shouldn't move there if you can't afford it. At the same time, NYC needs to be less expensive so it can accommodate everybody who keeps it running.

I still can't get past the fact that some dizzy broad thinks automatic washing machines were invented in the 1970's.

This all makes me sad and a third generation New Yorker. I recently settled my mother's estate and I realized it's not only expensive to live in this city, it's also expensive to die here.

Sorry for your loss R51. Yes, NY government needs to focus on enabling multiple income levels to thrive in NY by creating diversity in all parts of its economy. Maybe you can get involved.

Everything is up in the air,nothing is guaranteed.

Most thinking people are rethinking their life's choices inside this quarantine.

This isn't a bad thing, but change can be scary.

[quote]The average rent in Manhattan began the year at a record high of $4,210 a month

That is fucking ridiculous.

[quote]Post-rona nobody wants to spend their money on a Harry Potter Yoga Class or a clay mould of their cat's vagina.

Speak for yourself, bub!

R26. Will you marry me? That is exactly how this will play out.

I just looked and there were not another hundred people getting off of the train, or the bus or the plane. Maybe yesterday?

Schadenfreude from DC? Even when ridden with a viral disease, New York is still more interesting and vibrant than that pathetic open air government office Washington DC. NYC will recover in time. DC is a joke city filled with khaki wearing douchebags. It does make me sad that New Yorkers were hit so much harder than the execrable residents of our nations' capital .

What a stupid article, obviously written by a not-NYer. There are plenty of legit complaints about NYC, but lack of in-unit washer and dryer is not one of them. It's only slightly less silly than complaining about tiny bathrooms.

These NYC-exodus stories come around every few years, and they always center around someone who obviously wasn't planning to stay long term anyway. They make no difference. The vacancy rate will still hover well below the national average and rents will remain high. Can't handle a 4 story walk-up? Go on and go, NY will be just fine without you. The last real exodus was in the late 70s when NYC lost something like a million people. The city gained its population back by the 90s and grew to its largest ever in the 2010s. Even if we lost a million people now, we'd be back to late 90s levels.

what will be the new millennial hot spot to live? Every generation cohort has one. Any guesses?

[quote]a clay mould of their cat's vagina

This is the first legitimate LOL I've had in months, R46

I hope 95% of transplants move out of NYC when this is finished. Sick of them. They ambushed nyc and took the flavor out of her

Great, more of them will come down here. Last thing Florida needs is more Yorkers and Jerseys. We are full.

I look forward to NY landlords realizing no one wants their shitty overpriced apartments and they have to drop the prices drastically.

The eternal dilemma.

When all is right and the future seemingly bright, NYC is the center of the universe. When retirement or tightened budgets loom, when the question of school for the kids arises, when a career trajectory turns south or flattens with no hope of an upward tick, when the city's prosperity seems to lift all boats but yours, when expectations of a brighter more luxurious future wane, when crisis turns the vitality of the city to a relentless reminder of its compromises...these articles pop up. Hell, there's a few every week in the NYT in the best of times: some interior designer, bored with it all, finds a little bit of Provence on the Hudson, buys a block of early 20th Century downtown buildings in Holly Springs, Mississippi. An family with two kids moves to the Main Line of Philadelphia, the lawyer husband working for his father-in-law's industrial machinery business which seems to have churned out money for a century and a half, yet not enough to give suitcases of the stuff away to the daughter and her family to buy a house in NYC.

I have an old friend, a quarter century out of Manhattan who has moved almost as much as I have, never long happy in a place because, well, it isn't NYC. I get a text once or twice a year: could I suggest where to move? the perfect community? A place where a nice two-bedroom historic cottage, dripping with character and stuffed with every modcon, and a large room with good light for an art studio, and a tiny no maintenance garden, front and back, and walking distance to a nice choice of coffee shops, in a very liberal, social town, and with a choice of very liberal synagogues, and an excellent Thai restaurant, and maybe near a Balducci's, and within an hour of the ocean, preferably much closer, East Coast (or Northern California, but not Florida, or the South), and close to big cities but small and quaint, but not too small and not too quaint? And for under $150,000, with low taxes? "No!" And yet the request comes back again. (And, by easy self-admission, the opposite was true when the friend lived in NYC.)

Another delusional New Yorker who thinks NYC is the center of the universe. That's nice.

[bold] Yet Another One Where Flyoverstanis Bash New York

She put her stuff in a machine and then left. I hate people who do that. I’ll bet she was gone for hours.

[bold]Post 5,034,677 in Which YourMillennialFriend Offers an "Eagerly" Anticipated Hot Take on Something in the Inimitably Autistic Way That Only He Can[/bold]

YMF escaped NYC to his parents house months ago.

Why don’t these people buy a weekend home? Bring the laundry with them?

[quote]YMF escaped NYC to his parents house months ago.

Are you implying that YMF is.... a...... TRANSPLANT?

I came here to say what r69 did -- this bitch threw her laundry into a public machine and took off, lord knows for how long, and when she came back WHENEVER THAT WAS threw a hissy fit because somebody needed to use the machine that her stained panties had been rotting inside of and so they tossed her wet garbage out of their way. Fuck her entitled twat ass.

R65 posting from 1982.

The funniest part about this is the idea that the coronavirus is what is making people talk about leaving New York. Escaping the city’s rat race is something people have been obsessed with for well over a century, since before the [italic]last[/italic] pandemic.

This is from “My Dinner With Andre,” a film written in the late 70s and released in 1981. Of course New York was deeply dysfunctional in the ‘70s but the same impulse has always been around. Here Andre is talking about a Swedish physicist he knows:

[quote]And when I met him at Findhorn, he said to me, " Where are you from?" I said, "New York. " He said, "Ah, New York. Yes, that's a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?" And I said, "Oh, yes?” And he said, "Why do you think they don't leave?" I gave him different banal theories. He said, " Oh, I don't think it's that way at all." He said, "I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they've built. They've built their own prison. And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia, where they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result, they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they've made, or to even see it as a prison.”

[quote]And he took out a seed for a tree, .and he said, "This is a pine tree." He put it in my hand and he said, "Escape, before it's too late."

[quote]See, actually, for two or three years now, Chiquita and I have had this very unpleasant feeling that we really should get out. We really feel like Jews in Germany in the late '30s. “Get out of here.“ Of course, the problem is where to go. 'Cause it seems quite obvious that the whole world is going in the same direction.

[quote]The people with the more masturbatory jobs

Pics please.

People go where there jobs are. THey will consider the opportunities and the quality of life. If you have money, NYC is great. If you don't, it is a very inconvenient city. Watching people on buses and subways, Middle class people, stopping to pick up groceries and toting them home, going out to do laundry or sending the laundry out, etc. Very inconvenient city.

You can't have a car because it costs a fortune to park. Most apartments have no storage space; they're small. That's why most people who live there take most of their meals out or get take out. Most socialize in clubs restaurants Bars, etc. Because it's impossible to entertain comfortable in 500 SF apartment with one toilet. The thing is, now that working from home has entered the mainstream, there is no reason to put up with the inconvenience and the high rents, etc. YOu can work from where ever home is and come in to the city for all the things you want to do.

But one of the memories I will never forget from 9/11 is the parking lots in Jersey. All those cars whose owners never came home from work.

I live in a third floor walk up and also walk four blocks to do laundry. Once a week, I walk two miles to the most affordable grocery store with a big reusable bag, load it with as much as I can carry, and walk home.

I’ve had bedbugs twice and lived with all sorts of inconsiderate roommates. Daily life is unquestionably annoying.

I stay because there is a sense of possibility in NYC I haven’t experienced anywhere else. Life would be easier elsewhere, but easy isn’t necessarily better.

The highs you can experience here are, I think, considerably higher than most other US cities. The lows are also much lower.

I might never reach my dream NY life, but am not ready to give up pursuing it yet.

I can understand why you stay, R79. A common feature of the best cities is that there are people who moved there because they loved the place, and proceeded to find a way to make it work when some other place may have been the more practical or safer choice. People drawn to a.place have no small role in making that place.

I can also understand that for people want different things at different times. Some people have one.plan and stick to it forever, others need to change course, and change again.

Good luck to you.

Two-miles to a grocery store, though? Damn.

You can have a really fun party in a 300 square foot studio apt with only one toilet if your friends aren’t impossible prisspots - I do it often. All you need is booze, a few pizzas and the right attitude.

Oh, fuck off, r8.

Sufficient toilet paper is also a necessary ingredient r81.

I agree R83 - but in my experience most people take their daily dump in the am - so the pm cocktail and pizza soirées at my "cozy" brownstone walk-up studio usually only need to accommodate those who need to piss (although ladies still need to wipe.) Pro Tip - invite all the neighbors in the building because "you can't complain about noise if you are making it" and that also allows the party to spill out in the the stariwell

[quote] Pro Tip - invite all the neighbors in the building

Yet the bitch doesn’t think to invite us.

NYT just published an article: "The Agonizing Question: Is New York City Worth It Anymore?" Link in the tweet thread

[quote]The main problem is far too many people move to NYC who CAN NOT AFFORD TO LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY.

Then pay a decent wage! There are lots of jobs that pay a living wage in most cities that NYC dose not. For example, most digital artists make anywhere between 35,000 to 60,000 per year. In any other city that's average but in NYC good luck living off that. And at the same time they bitch that NYC is losing all it's creatives to Los Angeles. Stop bitching that you live in a vapid city full of Realtors, lawyers, investment bankers and housewives.

[quote]Oh, fuck off, [R8].

Typical NYC attitude needs to check himself. I am not R8 but I am glad he pointed out Native Americans are the only ones that should be bitching about transplants. And for the record, I am half Native American. My ancestors were waving hello when yours just got off the boat.

i do not understand new yorkers (city). Most of the NYers that claim they love their city for the arts and culture, never go to the theater. They can barely afford to eat.

No, I do not think spending 50 bucks on a shit hamburger is culture. Remember, when they thought that 50 buck sundae was culture? 50 bucks because it has some gold leaf glitter in it.

If laundry lady thought it through there is a solution to her dilemma. Problem solved.

the NYTs is fucking up big time during this time of crisis. Giving opeds to white terrorists demanding martial law, "getting to the bottom of the Tara Reade story " long after her reps dropped her as a client, and continuing to run state sanctioned propaganda without any analysis. The NYTs is telling us unemployment is down just as the Trump admin told them to.

the NYTs is fucking up big time during this time of crisis. Giving opeds to white terrorists demanding martial law, "getting to the bottom of the Tara Reade story " long after her reps dropped her as a client, and continuing to run state sanctioned propaganda without any analysis. The NYTs is telling us unemployment is down just as the Trump admin told them to.

hello Blatinx transplant troll at R6

R89 - for me it is much more than that, although I average 6 plays a year and around two dozen revival / foreign film screenings. If you’re a visual person there is always something to look at, think about and absorb. I love being able to walk everywhere I need to go and enjoying the architecture & history of my surroundings as I do it - admittedly I am much more interested in nyc architecture & history than the average person. I like how you never know just who you will meet (especially true in gay circles) and like having a group of friends that is very diverse in age, race, interests and occupations. I also like the anonymity and what EB White called the “queer prizes” of loneliness and privacy. I just like urban living - being in the suburbs or a rural area is the opposite of relaxing for me, but I know I’m not typical. I also like living next to the school where my grandmother went to kindergarten over a century ago.

Coronavirus + DeBlasio + Carranza (schools chancellor hellbent on lowering standards for all schools who has shown particular contempt for smart Asian kids) + bail laws that put violent offenders back on the streets within hours + city First Lady squandering millions of taxpayer dollars on a “mental health” initiative that has ZERO to show for it + uncontrolled looting of small businesses + more people now permitted to work from home instead of having to live near the office + a vibrant arts and culture scene that has been severely crippled by the pandemic = the perfect recipe for destroying NYC.

The wealthy have already left NYC in droves, snapping up homes in wealthy CT suburbs at ridiculous prices. The middle class is following closely behind, a la washer/dryer lady. I don’t know what to tell you guys, but it is happening.

[quote] And for the record, I am half Native American. My ancestors were waving hello when yours just got off the boat.

If you’re only half Native American then you’re ancestors were waving hello at your ancestors when they got off the boat.

And when I was at Findhorn, I met this extraordinary English tree expert who had devoted his life to saving trees. Just got back from Washington, lobbying to save the redwoods, he's 84 years old, and he always travels with a backpack cause he never knows where he's gonna be tomorrow. And when I met him at Findhorn, he said to me, "Where are you from?" and I said, "New York." He said, "Ah, New York. Yes, that's a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?" And I said, "Oh, yes." And he said, "Why do you think they don't leave?" I gave him different banal theories. He said, "Oh, I don't think it's that way at all."

He said, "I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they've built. They've built their own prison. And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners, and as a result, they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they've made or to even see it as a prison." And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree and he said, "This is a pine tree." He put it in my hand and he said, "Escape before it's too late."

yes, I've read that NYers moving to CT, NJ, the Hamptons, even creating a bidding wars for homes etc. Many bought houses, many are renting etc.

The looting has caused millions in damages for retail, the dumb fucks even looting their own neighborhoods like bronx and brooklyn, mom and pop stores...

There may not be jobs here, many big biz are laying off workers all over the country, many have filed for bankruptcy. Virus definitely fucked many over.

Just checked a building online that my husband & I have been looking at for a few years. The prices went up @$100k once the 2nd Ave subway went in. The prices are unchanged in that building & in others in the same neighborhood. And there is very loud construction going on in that block.

Let’s face it - not that many people died & most were elderly & had serious health problems. Young & middle aged NYers aren’t too worried. 110k died nationwide. It’s not like 1 million died, nor are 1 million likely to die. Of the virus hits again in the fall maybe we’ll wind up with 200k nationwide for the whole pandemic.

These “sky is falling - NYC is emptying out for good - lack of laundry in my apartment broke my will” stories are fodder to fill space. NY’s demise is always being predicted. In the last bust only real estate in the 10s of millions of dollars were affected. Celebrities had to sell their investment apartments for $17M instead of $25M. Boo hoo.

there nowhere to really take a walk out in the wasteland of suburban sprawl. I mean, you CAN walk, but likely you won’t encounter any other people, pass any interesting shops you can poke your head into, and you likely will have to walk along the gravel shoulder of a road while cars whizz past. Oh, and Karen will be peeking out from her window because she wants to know why there is a pedestrian walking down her residential street.

[quote]The wealthy have already left NYC in droves, snapping up homes in wealthy CT suburbs at ridiculous prices.

This is how I know you're full of shit. A few people left and it wasn't for another high tax state. The loss of the SALT deduction has the wealthy moving south.

He sounds like a moron, R98.

People who live in NY vacation all around the world. They rent cars & go upstate or to the Hamptons, down the shore. Fire Island, Cape May, Cape Cod, Block Island, Saratoga, Cooperstown, Erie Canal bike trail, Catskills, Adirondacks, Finger Lakes, Thousand Islands, Boston, Berkshires, Montreal. There are hundreds of interesting places within driving distance of NYC. Whitewater rafting, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, amusement parks, vineyards, distilleries, aquariums, farms, fall colors, arboretums, botanical gardens, whale watching.

Living in NYC in no way rates being equated with a being in concentration camp except by clueless rubes. Just because you rubes don’t know how to get in, around & outside NY doesn’t mean the people who live here don’t.

Just in case you didn’t know, it’s really easy to rent cars.

Plus there’s Metro North, LIRR & other railroads, which I’m sure your tree loving Brit knew nothing about. Btw, did you ask your little tree man what he thought of the trees in the NY botanical gardens? Or even Central Park.

"They" are professional shoplifters who used these protests to get their high. "They" are professional shoplifters who looted stores to resell on the underground market. "They" are agitators motivated to disrupt peaceful protests with the aim of getting the protest shut down.

Protests have been peaceful, until "they" discovered they can hide their criminality under the BLM movement which is a blind spot that infuriates whites.

Oh, to live in R102’s deluded little NYC-centric world!

You’re not going to be able to read this article because it’s behind a paywall, but the headline says it all.

“A ‘tidal wave’: New Yorkers snapping up CT homes as they flee the city.”

A quick google search will produce other articles with the same theme.

I can't even count the number of times the NYTimes has profiled a NYer who has decided to move to some rural hamlet to open some quaint business. What they don't mention is that a pile of family money is usually involved.

not just CT, in NJ too.

It really says something when NYers flee from one high tax state to another....

“But realtors are seeing an unexpected increase in long-term stays and home purchases, with FlatRate Moving company reporting an increase in moves between March 15 and April 28 from New York to Connecticut jump by 74% over the same period in 2019. In the same two months, the United States Post Office saw a sharp increase in the number of New York City residents submitting mail-forwarding requests for new addresses, reported the New York Times. At least 2,962 of those new addresses are in Connecticut.”

R101 You've hit the nail on the head. Walking in much of suburbia is depressing beyond belief. And the Karen comment is so true. So many suburbanites act like creepy fucking voyeurs when they see anyone walking around. I'm stuck in the suburbs now but I found urban life both physically and mentally healthier.

R105 the onky person deluded is you for linking to a propaganda puff piece designed to drum up prospective buyers.

I have no real opinion bad or good about NYC but I wonder if the pendulum is about to swing back re: city living.

We have had 20-25 years of a real shift from what was all suburbia all the time to a renewed appreciation of cities and walkability - and a push, with that, of increasing density.

The pandemic made density a liability, though, and I suspect suburbia is about to have its own renaissance.

Another non-puff piece.

Yeah, R111, that’s why CT McMansion monstrosities that have been on the market for years are suddenly being snapped up.

Kindly fuck off.

Newsflash: CT has always been a destination for NYers. Once those grads of Yale, Wharton, Harvard & Columbia put in a few years at the company they start earning big bucks and it’s time to head for Westport & other towns in CT & Westchester NY. Doctors, too. It’s a big status symbol to come in late to the hospital for the 1st surgical case of the day & say, “it was backed up like crazy all the way from Westchester to the bridge due to black ice.”

Boomers are retiring — a lot of them are retiring sooner than they thought they were, lol. Offered early pensions to get the hell out or be fired. Time to movd down to Jupiter full time. So long Westchester & CT. The new, younger execs & docs are moving in.

R112, the weird thing is cities far denser than NY weren't hit nearly as hard and the suburbs around NY were actually hit harder than Manhattan. What really needs to be dine is to take an honest look at what happened in the boroughs and even then why certain neighborhoods were hit harder than others.

R113, you do know that the “@politifact” article (not exactly The NY Times, now, is it?) was written in 2019 a year before pandemic? And that it cites a 2018 study?

Idiot.

Here’s an article claiming NYers are fleeing in 2018 & 2019.

Here are the wealthy NYers fleeing NYC because a democrat was elected mayor

This was in the POST,a white wing rag.

Of course, the worst pandemic to hit NYC is Carranza.

I love how Meghan McCain tweeted that “my neighborhood this morning” was in shreds & looked like a war zone and someone on Twitter said “I live in the same building as you Meghan. Everything’s fine.” And it turned out Meghan wasn’t even in town.

From article at R120:

“Moving company FlatRate Moving cited a 74 percent increase in relocations between New York City and Connecticut between March 15 and April 28. The mass exodus has been dubbed “a tidal wave.” In April alone, the US Postal Office received 81,000 mail-forwarding requests from New York City residents, 60 percent of those were to addresses outside of the city.”

The NY Post may be a right wing trash rag, but it should be easy enough to fact check those post office statistics.

Wow, somebody is triggered.

If one million people abandoned LA and one million people abandoned SF, a lot of California's problems could be solved. There is said to be an exodus from California and New York. That's a good thing.

For forever a lot of people see spending their 20s in Manhattan as a temporarily thing - real life (marriage / kids / house) is always down the road; also over the last 20 years many solidly middle class people couldn’t afford to stay in Manhattan with kids even though they wanted to (the outer boros - hipster Brooklyn aside - have always been a different story). Many of the people who are leaving were always going to leave at some point, it’s just happening a bit earlier than they thought.

Others, like two different friends, do feel burnt-out and unsure but are sad and torn as I help then pack.. The city is always changing for better & worse simultaneously. I know I’m not going anywhere ever, but we each get to make our own personal decision.

[quote] then you’re ancestors were waving

Oh, dear!

This is not really news...there has been an exodus from New York for at least 10 years now since the last recession. It is just accelerated because of recent events.

agreed r126.

Cities are not made for social distancing or health pandemics or massive protests occurring during a heath crisis.

Nevertheless, R34, I think what drives a lot of people out of big cities and especially New York is the feeling that your life does not have the everyday niceties and amenities that middle-class Americans expect. You either care about that or you don’t. NY lifers don’t care or they wouldn't stay. But I think many of the younger people who surged into big cities in the last 15 years eventually figure out that they’d really prefer the comfortable, spacious, and convenient suburban life they grew up with. It only took me 4 years to figure that out, but I was 33 when I moved to the city, and it was 1990. Someone who arrived in their early-mid 20s in post-Giuliani New York probably would enjoy city life longer.

R81, how old are you? The party you describe can be fun if you’re 25. (Not for me because I’m a lifelong prisspot, but for most people.) At 50, a party like that is just pathetic and uncomfortable and not something grownups do.

R131 - R81 here and I'm 56 with friends who range between 25 and 75 on the invite list It's an annual christmas cocktail and pizza bash, I invite the whole brownstone including the live-in landlords and the party moves out into the stairwell - so plenty of places for elders to sit. Everybody A is certainly a grownup, and B has a fucking great time -- every year I get people asking when the party is happening. I don't think you're pathetic, but I do kind of feel bad for you. Maybe try not shitting in other people's punch bowls.

I couldn’t imagine not having a washer and dryer in my house. Unreal

Unfortunately while abandoning NYC, it's like a house on fire, the rats flee and infest other places. We certainly do not need that.

Summary: NYC is the only city with proper culture or diversity or walkabilty or architecture or history or the opportunity for interesting chance encounters. And the only alternative is the vast sprawl of suburban wasteland ruled by Karens; or setting up a quaint and chic shop in some idyllic rural crossroads, funded with a bottomless pit of family money?

No r135 we're just snarking on the NYTimes and the kinds of profiles they usually do.

My rent for a studio in Wash Heights in a no frills building went up 30% 18 months ago when I renewed the lease. It was take it or leave it and I was stuck because moving is costly and I like my small space because it is comfortable and safe.

I am dreading the renewal increase in Feb 2021, but am hopeful that the rental market will finally stop climbing and level off or God Help us all, go down a little bit. That would be the silver lining, but I am not optimistic.

Anyone else hopeful the Manhattan rental market might level off in price?

If living in Washington Heights was the only way I could afford NYC, I would be out of there so fucking fast.

People stay in New York City for the social programs, which is possible because of the tax dollars. If those programs are slashed, people with leave. Also, social programs reduces crime and other society problems.

Many New Yorkers want to move to California. This a high priority among film/TV studios, artists, scientists and journalists. They want move space because they have to work from home. California is a BLUE STATE.

People want to leave New York because of Mike Bloomberg's policies and the effect they are having on the Corona Virus spread. Domiciles that are too small, not enough space per person for household members. Lack of outdoor public space throughout the city. Lack of rent control and food price control policies.

Bloomberg also stole from public health monies to throw black kids into walls. He trained police to dehumanize, injury and kill African-Americans kids with public health funds that could have been spent on health care coverage, Medicare for all.

R140. I disagree 100%. That is all BS. Bloomberg was great for NYC and would have been a great President. Bloomberg was tough on the lazy and wanted people to work. He was very kind and sympathetic to people with true needs for social services. He connected personal responsibility with govt assistance. He felt that people who could get back to work should do so. I honestly miss the guy.

[quote] Bloomberg was tough on the lazy and wanted people to work.

Are you implying that all that black kids were lazy and did not want to work?

R142 are starting racist shit you moron? Pathetic how your mind thinks.

R143, Bloomberg is hardly the best example of racial tolerance. He was clueless and as harmful as Trump. He's intelligent and astute businessman but I doubt he would have made a good president

Bloomberg handled the homeless problem...I don't know what he did exactly but it wasn't this bad when he was mayor.

Bloomberg handled the homeless problem...I don't know what he did exactly but it wasn't this bad when he was mayor.

Bloomberg crashed and burned as presidential candidate because of his abysmal relationship with African Americans

[quote]People want to leave New York because of Mike Bloomberg's policies and the effect they are having on the Corona Virus spread. Domiciles that are too small, not enough space per person for household members. Lack of outdoor public space throughout the city. Lack of rent control and food price control policies.

That doesn't seem correct, to look just at apartment size.

Newly created apartments had a minimum size of 400 square feet in NYC until 2016 -- an idea developed as I understand it in part under Bloomberg's administration but not enacted until 2016 three years three years after he was mayor.

[quote]The NYC Building Code requires all apartments or dwelling units to have at least one room with a minimum square footage of 150 square feet. The typical minimum bedroom size is 80 square feet. In the case of a studio or one room apartment the 80 square foot rule would not apply. [the 2016 code]

Aside from the usual NYT "What's it like to live in a micro-apartment?" lifestyle articles, it seems there are more housing articles that ask why the city doesn't have more such apartments than there are articles questioning the legitimacy of micro-apartments and remarkably few that condemn them. The number of such apartments created from this Bloomberg idea under another mayor doesn't seem to be sufficient to generate articles raising the question of "too many?" NYC was not among the top 10 U.S. cities that saw apartments decrease in average size from 2008-2018; but it was midway on the list of top 10 U.S .cities that saw an INCREASE in average apartment size over those same years, by 12%.

At 733 sq. ft. Manhattan has the second smallest average rental apartment size in the U.S. (after Seattle at 711 sq. ft., tied with Chicago at 733 sq.ft. , and with 3 sq. ft. less than DC, 4 sq. ft. less than San Francisco, and 7 sq. ft. less than Tucson at sixth smallest. Only at L.A., #7 on the list, does the square footage leap to 771 sq.ft.—a difference of 38 sq. ft., enough that could be properly noticeable. At #20, El Paso TX with an average 812 sq.ft. is greater by the equivalent of a small bedroom, so the spread between the 20 U.S. cities with the smallest apartments is not so enormous as to be cruelly unfair to Manhattan. (The U.S. city with the largest average rental apartment size is—call your realtor—College Station TX at 945 sq. ft.

I'm not shilling micro-apartments or Bloomberg or College Station TX, but sometimes NYC suffers from a bit of exceptionalism that's contrary to fact.

Bloomberg stole public health money, and used it to throw African-Americans Kids into a wall. His structure violence policies are against all of us. He is a deeply disturbing RACIST.

Micro apts make me laugh: they closed all of the SRO hotels, only to make them into the same things, at a huge rate increase.

You’re right R150. I’d definitely consider an old fashioned boarding house if they still existed.

Bloomberg was an advocate of the tiny home. studio apartment trend. Also, he wanted to house "laborers" in old shipping containers. He is a complete psycho, loser and wanna be robber baron.