is New York City dead?

and tacking back to less horrific
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-liquor-stores-nyc.html

and the more predictable
https://thecity.nyc/2020/04/garbage-pickups-tell-tale-of-two-cities-as-manhattan-shrinks.html

icymi

https://gothamist.com/food/third-nyc-food-pantries-have-closed-swelling-bread-lines-during-coronavirus-lockdown

about fucking time

https://gothamist.com/news/crowded-hasidic-funeral-williamsburg-coordinated-approved-nypd

brad lander otm:
"Leading with policing to address a public health crisis is just not the answer"

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/05/01/missing-sounds-of-new-york

Socially distanced. Spiritually connected.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 1, 2020

thank God Andy's too reptilian to be president, eh

Probably yeah.

don't tempt fate...

NY Review of Books has it about right:

Prior to the pandemic, his reputation was that of a top-dog machine politician par excellence—a bullying, controlling, charmless power broker, reviled by progressives, accepted by Republicans, and tolerated by the rest

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/05/14/andrew-cuomo-emergency-responder/

woof

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/nyregion/coronavirus-flowers-bodies.html

when the nyse reopens, it will ban people who took public transit to get there

jfc

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2020/05/15/the-coming-carmaggeddon-will-our-leaders-solve-nycs-transportation-problem

Just wanna have some fried chicken

So looks like I am officially one of those leaving NYC people, moving to westchester

I don't know if I was ever really an NYC person, but the one appeal of the city -- supposedly a music scene and lots of musicians to play with -- became increasingly fleeting, as the neighborhood I could afford to live in with my family, even on a lawyer and teacher's salary, had few musicians, no practice spaces, and no places to play. This feeling was sealed talking to a friend in the town I'm moving to, who says he actually finds it easier both to find other musicians and make friends in the town he lives in now than he did in Brooklyn.

Here's your hat.

NO MORE BIRYANI FLASHY FOR U! BYE SUCKA LOL

ironically, the city may now become cheaper and more habitable for musicians again. I honestly hope it does! It's just not for me anymore, working dad me trying to raise kids etc.

lol, calstars

when i lived in nyc - late 90s, early 2000s - it was pretty terrible for live music for exactly the reasons you mention, man alive. there were a few venues downtown (luna lounge, brownie's, arlene's etc) and some weird warehousy spaces in brooklyn but practice spaces were hard to find and expensive.

I went to Astoria Soundworks for the last time right before the lockdown, wonder if they are still open in some capacity, website doesn't say they are closed.

yeah even then I remember it being tough, or at least early 2000s, which was sort of the peak of my band life. There were still more venues and practice spaces than there are now, but there was this feeling that, compared to other cities, no one really gave a shit about you unless you were the hype of the moment, not much of a sense of "scene" or ease of developing a following. There were the Todd P and other DIY type shows, and I'm sure there's some equivalent now that I'm just not keyed into as an old guy, but I'm not even talking about being in a "real band" and being in a "scene" anymore, I just mean having a fucking basement so people can come over to play, instead of, like, booking a 2-hour window two weeks in advance and having to split up the payment five ways and drive 20 minutes to get there and spend another 20 minutes looking for parking, and then looking at booking shows at some crap bar in a different borough because it's the only place you can find that would book you easily.

This is how all of these issues are related - closing the beaches, closing pools, closing cooling centers, not opening up more space outside for people. It's all related. It's an urban system that is failing because the person in charge doesn't understand how the system functions

— Second Ave. Sagas (@2AvSagas) May 27, 2020

People Like Amy Cooper Are Why I Left New York City

Newark is awesome. I hope people like Amy Cooper stay scared of it forever.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"For the next few months, people are going to make their own choices. Some people are going to be comfortable on mass transit, some are not." -@BilldeBlasio

— Erin Durkin (@erinmdurkin) May 28, 2020

"Some people are going to be murdered, some are not. It's New York! Fuhgeddatboutit!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9BNoNFKCBI

It's the repertory movie theaters and the restaurants that are keeping me here

― Josefa, Friday, May 10, 2019 9:13 PM (one year ago)

Welp

about 85% of why i am here is on hold

yup

same phenomenon in London. a lot of people wfh every day asking themselves, why am i here in this pokey apartment?

not my kind of place, but: foley's is closing for good

Not NYC, but mookie may appreciate: DC's Post Pub is closing for good

i don't think i ever went there! as long as the big hunt still lives . . .

Post Pub was more divey, despite location.

Hard to imagine the big hunt kicking it, but who knows?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/frustrated-and-struggling-new-yorkers-contemplate-abandoning-the-city-they-love/2020/05/25/153ca71e-9c5b-11ea-a2b3-5c3f2d1586df_story.html

thrilled to get a curfew alert in my hospital bed

NYC police scanner has been pretty crazy to listen to right now

that's here btw: https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/32890

not seeing any other way to read mass arrests and looting downtown other than as a total clusterfuck; curfew appears to have escalated the situation radically.

Shocking!

it was a phenomenally dumb move. Sounds like a major peaceful protest in Brooklyn came off without a problem but Manhattan got ugly.

and now these fuckers are going to stage an 8pm curfew for tuesday
i am in full on "can't sleep clown will eat me" mode. no idea how this city and its people are going to recover over the next few weeks.

the areas being hit - soho, union square, herald square - are predominantly the homes of the rich and hang out spots for tourists and knucklehead teenagers; it's gotta be like 95% the latter doing the looting.

Feels like a very organized effort tonight - kids have turned up with hammers and big bags, they have spotters on the corners and cars ready to go. Group of about 500 kids now running up Fifth Ave looting whatever they want pic.twitter.com/vP97YCLis7

— Rachel Olding (@rachelolding) June 2, 2020

which is to say - and i know i'm preaching to the choir here but it feels worth noting - that the protestors are not driving or motivating this looting

Some young men just tried to loot an Aldo on 5th Ave when other protesters grabbed them, pulled one guy out the store window, and made them stop. An argument about looting then ensued. #NYCProtest #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/cQaG7GHMtR

— Liam Stack (@liamstack) June 1, 2020

I’m rooting for the looters. Those kids are having fun out there.

i could give a shit about macy's but those kids having fun out there are allowing nyc residents and world media to associate anti-brutality protests with smash-and-grab robberies which couldn't be more counterproductive.

bonus: a significant number of those kids having fun out there are gonna get their heads cracked open and/or potentially catch a felony when nypd decides to go over the tapes.

and hey not for nothing but given that we've all been in full quarantine lockdown in this city for nearly three months and we've just had a buffet of local violent attacks by the cops on protesters, maybe full-on fucking looting in manhattan is maybe a bit more anarchy than any of us are down for at this precise moment.

silby for presidetn