New York, New York? The city so questionable in its ‘coolness’ and credibility right now, we had to name it twice
Of all the cities in the world, none has been gifted with as much brilliant branding as New York. Coming back with a souvenir t-shirt from any big city in the world would seem a risque move for the more stylish among us, but for some forgiveable reason we’ve probably all looked cool in an I ❤️ NY t-shirt at some point in our lives.
But it seems there’s a slight crack starting to appear in the 💔. Since being locked up over the Covid era and with the rise in TikTok telling the world how things really are, the big city that once shone bright like a statue’s beacon even on a cloudy night is starting, to, well, rot a little.
Sure, many capitals of the world are going through some sort of economic crisis right now – or at least an imbalance in wealth across the greater communities, but the contrasts seem much starker – and darker – in New York City, 2025.
There are concerns about the city’s decline, citing issues like the destruction of public amenities, rising apartment-living costs, an increase in crime, subsequent increase in surveillance, a crumbling infrastructure, and a decline in the quality of services. Soon, customers in crumby diners are going to wonder whether or not to tip.
Some sources link these problems to gentrification, economic changes, and a government that is seen by some as not adequately addressing the challenges. And while all this is happening, you can bet Hollywood and stream-TV are going to try to amp up the old coolness and cred New York once had. Or so we believed it had.
Blame Donald Trump for his blatantly obnoxious attitude and behaviour toward the rest of the world. Blame Silicon Valley for its greed for data and invasion of people’s privacy. Blame Hollywood for not having its sexist shit together decades ago instead of having to feel shitty right now about all having taken part in the abuse in some way, shape or form. Whatever we might choose to blame, as a whole, the abovementioned actions haven’t done anything to help save New York’s reputation – let alone that of any other well-known American city. The trust in American Cool is kind of waned.
I’ve been to New York on a few occasions. And by occasions, I mean BIG. In one night, I ——– together with my sister Melina (who has lived there for two years) and good friend Mauricio (he has a lovely aunty and fabulous cousin who both live in midtown’s Columbus),
But there’s an ugly side to New York that really needs to be written about.
I remember first going to New York with my cousin Annette, and we received a pretty grand level of hospitality. We… We were even hosted by generous friend of ourse Jude, who put us up at her Ham
Here are 10 things that make the apple taste more sour than I thought it would.
You’ll notice that about American culture. As soon as the world starts to have its attention deterred elsewhere (Korean pop, Japanese manga, Italian tourism), it suddenly starts to dish out movies and TV shows and merchandise and more pushing its own pop/art/tourism agendas.
Americana as a whole is a beautiful thing. I personally love the design of the typical diner. I think Hollywood has made some amazing and inspiring films. I’ve liked a lot of American pop music. And I’m even partial to the occasional Reese’s pieces. But there’s a certain, unspoken, underhanded transaction between all of these things and the outsider tourist to the US of A.
New York is now apparently planting some of the remnance of its one-time coolness in different parts of the world to. Kind of making its outsiderness and quirkiness and even eccentricity on tour, as if to say – wow, is this how you guys do it over here? Over in our city we’ve never quite seen it like that before.
Parker Posey, forever considered the ‘It’ gal of New York (to me, anyway) and always an artist I’ve admired from afar, now has me seeing her as a mean and entitled, attitude-laden industry climber – not far removed from the ice-bitch character she played on Will & Grace.
In recent interviews, Posey has seen her wokeness overdrive interupt otherwise pleasant conversations between interviewer/interviewee, telling the journalist that asking about
The journalist was congratulating Lively on her “little bump” (she was soon to have her baby) and Lively responded less with grace and more with cockiness. She even insulted the journalist by saying “and congratulations on your little bump” when the journo actually could not conceive. Now, that shit might fly over drinks at The Bowery on the Lower East Side, but it just might not work on camera today – especially when the interviewer is aiming to help you promote a new film.
Speaking of films, you’re about to see trailers for a whole lot of movies, set in New York, about New York, about how New York is still cool, and about how if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Hollywood and the entertainment machine will try to sell you the notion that New York is the world’s greatest city till the cows come home. Except no cows would find satisfaction there (or in LA for that matter) since you don’t get much greenery.
The Big Apple is starting to rot and while its tenants battle cockroaches and rodents in shoebox-size flats, they still think that ‘hip’ is where its at without worrying about what’s in their hip pocket. Or what’s not. So long as they’re in New York, and can afford a bagel and cream cheese every night for dinner, everything’s alright here, right?
But the movie-going public – if they’re still going to the movies – aren’t buying it. Not being seduced by the grit and street-crime-is-fun of films like Caught Stealing and Highest 2 Lowest. Not too keen to buy into token cross-cultural rom-com ensembles such as Karate Kid: Legends or Materialists. Not even finding animated sports-driven comedy Sneaks funny as it desperately tries to shove pairs of American-branded basketball sneakers down our throats.
The Columbus Circle globe stands short outside of Trump International Hotel and Tower at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City.
New York is in a dissident state – and a lot of that has to do with the city/state’s nation of the USA being led by a non-caring ex-patriot of the once-was-great city. If the Trump Tower and Trump himself are so despised by the majority of the people of New York, what must it feel like looking up at it next to a dwarfed golden globe mid-town? The divide of rich versus the poor has only gotten greater since the closure of small businesses post-Covid and the implosion of the economy since, not to mention mad world relations – from crazy Ukraine business handshakes (so that’s what the war was all about!) to the current Gaza debates constantly being screamed about (with nothing being done about, really).
If you thought cost of living was high in your home city, you’ll probably get half of what you pay for here for the same price (converted to US dollars) in New York, New York.
Even the price of a pastrami on rye, or a hotdog, or a tacquito from a truck stand is more than what you’d expect from the city that advertises them every chance they get in episodes of TV series about New York in New York from New York so long as it talks about New York all day long and loves New York because it says they have to on every damn tourist t-shirt. The tourists sell the myth to the New Yorkers as much as the media sells the myth to the tourists.
Let’s be real. It’s electric and it’s buzzing and it’s got a history of hipness that’s seen it survive generations, but does it have the authentic liveability of a real city where there’s a sense of real community and healthy sport and space like, say, Copenhagen, Denmark or even Perth, Western Australia? Cities with better stability, fairer education, and more sensible infrastructure such as Zurich, Switzerland, Tokyo, Japan, or Melbourne, Victoria.
Sure, all these places have their share of crime, poorer regions, and corruption, but the most part they make life a pretty good blend of work and play, commerce and art, cultures, classes and the odd bit of exciting chaos.
It’s the very newness of these cities’ ‘hip’ factors that is starting to attract travellers from all around the globe to them. And with newness comes opportunity. New ideas – not remnants of an old Woody Allen film about neurotic characters to cope with their neurotic lives.
It’s no wonder I’ve recently been seeing the odd New York actor appearing in advertising down under. Real estate company Domain is currently running ads starring NYC stalwart Bobby Cannavale alongside and Rose Byrne as a couple desperately trying to get the low-down on the best properties to invest in across Australia. It’s funny because it’s true. People with big money are making big investments in our country. Many of our cities tick a lot of important boxes. Taxpayer money going less to war and more to quality infrastructure. Governments just as scallywag as the others in other countries but less greedy and I’m sure far less corrupt than anything sinister that we hear about in Russia, China, heck even the USA.
Property prices are getting quite high, as are our mortgages, but when you add up all the good things we have – big green parks, a good variety of sports, community charity drives, investment in new small businesses with better eco practices than the big wigs, multicultural celebration including a quality, welcome appreciation of our Indiginous brothers and sisters, healthy business, and better tranparency (well, maybe not some of our MPs and their private portfolios). It seems the people of, say, Perth or Melbourne, Zurich or Tokyo, are having a better time of it watching the world around them grow – and without the need to sell it to Hollywood for the sake of greater GDP.
Economics is important – and a little healthy competition across all markets is good. But that get-to-the-top attitude of the past greed-is-good eras, that got to be the most credible kid on the block with my rocks and my rep and my rap all on the TV and radio. That you’re nobody unless you’re somebody ethos that once gushed out of the streets and TV networks of New York City – like water pipes bursting and gushing out across grimy taxi-packed streets lined with grey, dystopian looking buildings. That shit’s just not pretty anymore.
There’s enough mess online that we have to cope with. We don’t want to walk out on our front porch stoop and see it for real. And there’s enough chaos, confusion, drama and noise coming from our Netflix binging and Spotify-trawling. We don’t want it when we just want to go for a lovely walk in the park. And that one big park posited in the centre of a busy city that takes three crazy train rides to get to just so you can visit John Lennon’s Imagine memorial on a lovely Autumn (sorry, Fall) day – that’s not quite the same as not having to imagine the good life and actually living a life of sanity and serenity (for the most part), space to move freely, clean buildings to frequent, and cool new ideas to be exchanged.
On my last trip to New York I found myself huddled in a cat-hair covered flat in Harlem with a lazy ex-lover who was stoned all day and so we stayed in every night like I was in some Machiavellian Manhattan nightmare. It was claustrophobic. It was all getting a bit hand-to-mouth with the amount of money my wallet was bleeding. It was all 99 cent shops just down the street from an over-decorated Bloomingdales. It was the old hip Apollo club now currently closed for an insane $65 million renovation. It was gentrification gone greedy and lots of boarded up shops thanks to bad sales, violence and looting. It was all lines around the corner of Radio City Hall for the Tonight Show or tonight costing USD200 for even the most humble night out. It was congested and overheated and concreted over (although the Chrysler Building is a remarkable feat in architecture, I must say). It was NYC-based friends looking over my shoulder to see if I’d tipped right so that they could get to the front of the line next time they visited the venue (I got us to the front of the line with a mention of my lovely magazine). It was bar tenders giving you big dazzling smiles and wide eyes wondering how big the tip is going to be. It was fine entertainment from bums on crammed trains with no coin to give the guys after I spent my last USD24 on a packet of English Breakfast Tea from Dean & Deluca (do our American friends seriously think the UK is that exotic?).
To some folks, it might be a fun challenge – a reminder that they’re actually living – fighting to cope and simply feel human in a city of 8.5 million lost souls. But I don’t have the time or inclination to ever want to do that. I once was offered a few hundred thousand in potential investment to move my magazine to New York headquarters – back when magazines were a big thing, that is. I didn’t take the offer up. Even with all the long lunches, fun launches, free drinks and fab after-parties, I think I’d end up a sweaty, tired mess by the end of it.
I do miss the good laughs and shop talk with Fran, though.
As I was writing this piece, I found I had to walk away from the computer a few times, to potter around my house, get my mind of thinking I might be being a bit cruel to a one-time great city… Get in a bit of rough-and-tumble play with my pet Chihuahua and the toys he loves most that are twice his size. Make a Jarlesburg cheese toasted sandwich without worrying too much about the cost of Jarlesburg right now. I did all that – back and forth to the computer, round the house, the occasional peek outside my windows at spunky cars whizzing by, neighbourhood locals getting in their exercise and sport, the weathe changing from a pleasant 24 degrees C to the occasional cool breeze that gets up my nose and reminds me of what a nice clean city I live in. I’d never have that in New York. Not even if you paid me several mean (and I mean several) to buy and live in a presidential apartment with a vantage of the Empire State Building.
Not even a modernised version of King Kong starring Margot Robbie (you know it’ll be a thing, right?) would sway me that this big, overpopulated, overrated city is the one I’d want to call home. Home is where the heart is. And I probably would never hear my heart in a noisy, nosy, Parker Posey city like New York. I once bought the coolness, but not anymore.
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