is New York City dead?

tbf sbarro's IS new york pizza for a generation of thirtysomething city kids

to me it's I-95 rest area pizza

I think I ate some... 30 years ago

my old boss and I like terrible food so we got lunch there a couple of years ago because it is near our office. It was kind of pricey! I also made her take me to the Times Sq Olive Garden for one of my birthdays.

was gonna say at least tad’s is still around but
https://nypost.com/2019/10/09/tads-steaks-finally-closing-its-last-nyc-outpost/

did you guys know there are two chock full o nuts in nyc but they're both in fuckin' midwood?
https://www.chockfullonuts.com/cafe-locator/

Ulysses, did you make thay T✧✧@K✧✧.E✧✧ shirt?

naw, it's from the original thread

That thread reminds me of The Flashy Crawl on Biryani Carts, Convenience Stores, etc.

Now I have the Chock full o’ Nuts jingle in my head on repeat.

https://amp.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/aptahm/saddest_place_in_nyc_sbarros_penn_station/

https://hyperallergic.com/524007/a-monument-to-tourists-killed-by-wolves-in-nyc-tells-a-tall-tale

Wolfen?

might as well be dead this weekend... don't get run over by the motorcade, skeletal runners!

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-trump-ufc-new-york-marathon-20191101-6etpd4daave6bephiz5zquknli-story.html

i would pay $500 american to watch trump run even a 5k

Stayed at the TWA hotel last night (not dead, embalmed) and saw a motorcade heading down the van wyck while driving home this morning. Did I miss an opportunity for a roadblock protest?

F you and your Marathon

Wolfen is one of those odd thriller-horror films from the early 1980s, along with Looker - which also stars Albert Finney - and Brainstorm that isn't very good and bored me when I saw it, but it feels years ahead of its time and has some great shots of 1970s New York:
https://images2.static-bluray.com/reviews/11940_16_large.jpg

They all feel as if they belong to the last gasp of downbeat brown-coloured 1970s sci-fi even though they were released in the new decade. I've never been to New York. It's one of those fantasy places that exists in films. The practical objection is that although transatlantic flights are £400 or so the only cheap hotels in New York appear to be hellholes because everybody wants to go there because it's New York.

How cheap is cheap. Might be able to find something one the outer boroughs that’s affordable and more interesting anyway.

i don't think i linked this earlier but, speaking to Ashley's point, omg the NYC in the linked film below is just amazing
italian post-apocalyptic science fiction The Warriors pastiche set in the far flung future of 1990. jump to 3.20 for a great fight sequence and 7.22 for the best bridge/body/drum solo ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEqOnHclmh8

been meaning to toss that on for ages... the sequel, "escape 2000," was a very good mst3k episode iirc.

That was the episode with Toblerone! He was one of the resistance leaders. He overacted like mad, he was fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXBEqMtOk5g

Unusually for that kind of Italian knock-off film it was apparently filmed in the actual Bronx.

You know, for years I assumed that Trading Places was set in New York. It has all the hallmarks. Snow, everybody wears greatcoats, the colour palette is grey, there are lots of posh stone buildings, most of the cast are elderly white people. But it was actually set in Philadelphia. Only the trading scenes at the end were in New York, specifically the WTC.

I mention it because I grew up in the 1980s, so I tend to associate the city with Wall Street, Ghostbusters, Working Girl and The Secret of My Success rather than the Bronx-is-burning films of the 1970s. In my mind it's a cold, hard, unsympathetic place rather than the loved-up hippie lovefest it probably is nowadays.

my dim memory of Escape 2000 is that it's mostly filmed on Roosevelt Island which at the time had some great rubbley ruins and weedy fields with views of Manhattan in the background. maybe parts of Jersey for the same effect. but i could be wrong and anyway your overall point is correct - it's actually New York! they could have easily picked some run-down part of Italy (thinking of Warrior of the Lost World using under-construction Corviale and other suburban-Rome locations for a post-apocalyptic future), or of America (like East St. Louis in Escape From New York).

all time best for that kind of thing has to be Rumble in the Bronx which just says fuck it and immediately shows you skyline views of Vancouver, complete with mountains in the background. i almost think the title might be on the screen for some of that. beautiful."

I saw Wolfen at BAM the other night for the first time in 38 years. Thought it was a good film both times! Biggest scare is the scene shot on a catwalk atop the Manhattan Bridge.

otoh, the 30ish couple in front of me who came in late, babbled to each other, and the female half of whom told her complaining neighbor "You have a stick up your ass": NYC is dead.

SAVE THE CITY
KILL THE LOUDMOUTH

Bloomberg's record in New York is perhaps the biggest, fastest, and most unrestrained application of "trickle-down economics" in this country. New York isn't rich because everybody is rich. It's rich because more and more only rich people can live there. https://t.co/lT1voHDX7r

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) November 8, 2019

https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/12/06/murders-up-8-7-percent-in-new-york-city-in-2019

Western Massachusetts

aspiring congressperson and Azealia Banks signee Paperboy Love Prince
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/personality/interviews-profiles/rapper-costumed-subway-entertainer-congressional-candidate

from a friend who was born in Manhattan and finally moved away 'The Liberals have ruined New York City. The smell of pot is everywhere. Half the people I meet in the street are stoned. Teenagers think it’s funny to blow smoke in the face of little school kids. homelessness '

— Michael Savage (@ASavageNation) January 1, 2020

The bitching of one's friends is an infallible indicator of universal truth.

friend otm about the pot though

Bet this guy’s never been to LA or SF to be complaining so much about NY

that guy needs to smoke a blunt and chill out

boomers bitching about marijuana while doped up on opioids is still on trend.

I once didn't air out my car enough when I was a teenager and my ultra conservative dad went to move the car the next morning and it totally still reeked and he was soooo upset "I was in the military, I know what marijuana smells like!!!"

TOURISTS GTFO DAY

related - has anyone ever run for mayor of NYC on the platform of less tourism, bc I think that would be a winner

but the holy revenue

I've lived in heavily touristed places and untouristed places, and I way prefer the former because the latter are boring wastes of time.

nb I live in the 2nd most touristed city in the world

boredom is v underrated, esp when all the fun places (for the nonrich) have been shuttered

I could suggest some boring places then

I was in New York recently (lived there for a bit a while ago, now I'm just an occasional tourist) and as always I like the way New York is so damn big that they can knock down tons of stuff and build tons of new stuff and it's still very visibly the same place it was in the 1980s.

my platform for mayor:

1. less tourism
2. cars banned in manhattan

Brad 2021

get me a cheap apartment to seal the deal

affordable housing for all of course, after i kick all the rich people out of their glass condos

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/12/30/how-new-york-is-zoning-out-the-human-scale-city/

In 2018, Chase Bank announced that it would tear down the fifty-two-story, black-and-silver-ribbed, early Modernist tower at 270 Park Avenue in order to build a new tower at least seventy stories high. This will be the tallest-ever demolition of a perfectly viable building in New York City. In 2002, Chase began a total renovation of the building to LEED standard, a green building certification that gave it “platinum” status, a rating that acknowledges the value of preserving the embodied energy of an existing building and avoids energy use for demolition, landfill, and new construction. Landmark skyscrapers across the country—from the Empire State Building, Chicago’s Willis Tower (formerly Sears), and San Francisco’s Transamerica—have taken this environmentally responsible approach and upgraded their buildings to LEED platinum standard. And in doing so, Chase also benefitted from the five years of federal environmental tax credits that go with that designation. Then threw it all away.

To achieve the extra height and bulk of the new 270 Park, Chase is taking advantage of the “upzoning” of nearby mid-Manhattan that was applied in 2017 to a seventy-three-block area around Grand Central between 39th and 57th Streets. Upzoning’s relaxation of city planning regulations expands the development potential of new buildings by allowing increased height and density (the number of units or amount of floor area on a given lot), and simplifying the transfer of “air rights” from landmarked buildings to new sites within the district. Chase was thus able to buy air rights from the landmarked St. Patrick’s Cathedral, some six blocks away, and construct a taller, bulkier building. Preservationists have identified at least thirty-three buildings worthy of landmark protection from such redevelopment in this Midtown district, but after fierce resistance from real estate interests, only twelve have been so designated. By no logic—design, environmental, planning, zoning, landfill capacity—does demolition of 270 Park make sense, especially when at least some in the architectural community are trying to advance sustainable design. The planned destruction of 270 Park exemplifies how a vital aspect of the urbanism on which this city has evolved and excelled over decades is now being dangerously eroded.

I weep for my city; it is committing urban suicide.

they really need a broad tourism tax or resident discount for public transport, museums etc. and yeah everything about real estate needs to be overhauled.

at work last week i saw one of those city banners advertising nyc as "the real estate capital of the world" and thought about how that's nothing to be proud of