After living in New York just under 8 years, I can kinda say I, we, became New Yorkers. The fuggitaboutits slid off the tongue easily and quickly, didn’t have to read a map to know which exit to take to get to 25th St and Ave of Americas off the N/R line, and acquired tastes for bagels with a schmear, good pizza, and Indian.
You can only imagine what a change it was to trade cement for sand, hot dowogs for ahi poke, and snow for constant sunshine. But we did and we made it.
NYC/NJ was an amazing place to call home. It took lots of patience and time to get used to Hawaii. You can’t anything you want in Honolulu but who needs it?!?! After living here, it was overwhelming to be around so many jackasses and knuckleheads. Everyone has somewhere to go and they gotta get there quicker than you. Funny enough, after living in New York so many years, I found the most obnoxious people were those that were not born in New York. They were transplants from Minnesota that decided the only way to fit in was to be an ass and do really rude things. So many times, I would encounter some dumb broad (sorry, its my New Yorker comming out!) cut me off on the sidewalk holding a latte while chatting with her friend back home in Nebraska on her cell. I mean just plain rude but an affected rudeness that even natives would laugh at. SoCal dudes who traded their board shorts for boardroom dress huffing past as if they mattered more in the world than you. I could go on.
I don’t think I every really took on a Jerky Boy attitude although some may say different, but after living there so long, just gets under your skin.
So much has changed in five years and its quite amazing to see how neighborhoods have transformed in what seems like overnight. Rich hipsters wearing designer Glass and steel towers sit between century old brick walkups. Where guys wearing Puerto Rican flags and do-rags in their hair now walk blonds with babies, Starbucks, and dogs.
New York has changed for the better to some as its become more homogeneous, if I can use that term. I don’t know if there is a term for homogeneous where race doesn’t matter but money does. Make sense? New York’s poor, or those who can’t afford high rents, fled making way for glass towers, hotels, and $5 expressos.
I’m making general statements but I did see with my own eyes, the color of New York is evaporating. I really didn’t see the waves of ethnicity that once overwhelmed me. I can’t believe how different New York has become. Its seems they, ethnicity fled being replaced by blonds walking their dogs, holding a baby, and drinking a Starbucks. I can only think the boom in real estate drove prices up which pushed taxes up forcing those on the edge to fall. It happened here…all you have to do is look at how many lower middle class and lower class citizens of Hawaii are living on the beaches. Those on the mainland at least can escape to the suburbs or other parts of the city for more affordable living. Hawaiians have no choice.
NYC proved a great trip. Had a really nice time seeing, eating, and being a New Yorker again. I’d entertain returning to the city that never sleeps but after living in Honolulu now for close to five years, its gonna be hard to escape this place.
But as much as I ragged on the changes of New York, I do have another NYC moment…
With my 35mm film camera dangling from my shoulder, I walked past a black guy selling his own self-made hip hop album at the N/R entrance at Union Square. He approached us with a swagger asking if we’d buy his album. I New Yorkerly said “no” in that firm don’t push it confidence. He then copped a look at my Leica asking…
“Is that 35mm film?”
“Yeah,” I snapped.
“Well…youse gots to step it up to digital, babe” flashing his Nikon Coolpix at me.
That was it…he was gone.
I only regret I didn’t get his cd.
