Moving to New York used to be a choice-a creative one, despite its eternal popularity-for people so devoted to nurturing their creativity that they were willing to overlook the strains of actually, you know, living there. I speak not from experience, really, but from my reading. Edith Wharton's writing career only truly began after Henry James advised her, "Use the American subject! Do New York! There it is round you." New York forces its resident to serve as constant interpreter-laying out the whole of "the American subject" in the petty triumphs and real inequities one finds. I always, when I was a student and lived in New York, found this quote inspiring, or at least believed this quote was "inspirational." Never mind that Wharton was an heiress whose New York could be "done" without struggle-New York was where it was all happening, for all of its residents willing to pay attention. Something universal, my generation's Age of Innocence would come again out of this disparity that was our New York.
In a Lynn Hirschberg backlist marathon this week-no longer in the city, I find ways to fill my time-I found the 2003 profile of Sofia Coppola, another heiress of sorts whose experience of New York is dramatically different, I assume, from most. Still, she sounds just like millions of other New York artists, or just enraptured young people, when she says she chose New York over Los Angeles, at least to edit her movie: "I wanted to see people on the street, to walk to work." Isn't that at least the promise of New York-the feeling that in one's walk to work something unusual or exciting might happen, that inspiration might strike? That you might suddenly find your subject. Or that the discovery wouldn't be sudden at all but learned bit by bit with each new New York adventure?
When I decided to go to college in New York, I was in the midst of a deep fascination with Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table; I thought that the entire city was a "smart set" fueling one another's creativity and productivity. I didn't see Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle until the end of my sophomore year, at which point I realized that, when not putting out a magazine, these people sat around and drank all day and bitched at one another.
The Algonquin sorts are the Brorothy Parkers to the recent Observer-coined "BroBos," who, in Leon Neyfakh's article, "enjoy a utopian-seeming existence marked by strolls down tree-lined streets, carefully chosen foods and leisurely weekends spent in coffee bars and parks. An existence only occasionally marred by the realization that this is not the hopped-up New York they came to conquer." Well, no. The New York they came to conquer is governed by ideas and actions. The New York they found is governed by an entrenched system of wealth and power near-impossible to surmount. So they decamped to what Neyfakh portrays as a state of permanent leisure. It's like Florida for the young.
Oddly, this state is sort of enviable, denying maturation (both personal and-for artistic sorts-artistic). One can play Frisbee anywhere, but there's a frisson of rebellion to doing it in New York, the hint of conscious dropping-out. It radiates out of the streets in Brooklyn, the sense of territory reclaimed for the young folks. Brooklyn's appeal became real, for a moment, when I heard about a "BK job fair" at my college and immediately wanted to take part, despite myself. No matter, anyhow: it turns out Columbia was actually advertising positions at Burger King's new Whopper Bar.
If these are the only ways that young people can live in New York-by carving out their own ethnographically unique borough in which grown-up concerns cannot penetrate, or by slinging Whoppers to pay an inflated rent-then maybe New York is not a narrative with an endpoint but an endless dialectic, a conversation already so loud that the young can't even be heard.
I don't have a compelling story to back up my assertions. I'm no Joan Didion or Jessica Roy. Nothing bad happened to me in New York; in fact, people were really kind to me! And I'm not going to need a plane to go to Brooklyn if I want to hang out with the Brooklynites I know. I'm moving to an apartment in the Westchester suburbs. Despite its nearness to New York, at a publishing party before my graduation, a friend and his very nice boyfriend thought that sounded terrible. "Stay where everything is happening," the boyfriend urged.
I lamely protested that I wanted to save a bit of rent money. "Everyone lives without money. You make it work," the boyfriend insisted. Maybe I'm not tough or smart enough to take part in that tradition, I thought! But when my friend, to whom I'd turned for advice in the past, told me to "maintain my momentum," I wondered towards what destination momentum was meant to carry me.
I had to edit the previous sentence down from the inadvertently plagiaristic "I couldn't help but wonder"-the topnote of Bradshaw overwhelmed my palate. In New York, I was constantly aware of (and just outside New York, have already begun to forget) the New York narratives overlaying my experience. No chance meeting had the sparkling dialogue of Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey in Hannah and Her Sisters, no walk inspired me to do the work of Wharton or Coppola; no internship was as good as Whitney Port's. As the latest revitalizations of the Carrie Bradshaw myth (on film as experienced doyenne and in print as a young girl dreaming of Manhattan) indicate, no city is as fraught with narratives as is New York. It's easy to fade into a torpor. Your narrative will most likely never be that interesting, and after some time in New York, it disperses altogether, leaving the desire to make sense of it all unfulfilled and also a bit ridiculous. At that same publishing party, a semi-famous young woman with a fluffy white dog and a quilted pink purse cut in front of me in the line to get a book signed. The momentum seemed to be lodging me in that queue; a row of characters waiting their turn for a plot.
What we-and by we, I very loosely mean people under thirty with liberal arts degrees or interests-need is a new narrative. I don't know if it exists! It would valorize young energy on a staging-ground determined by young people. The examples of Carrie Diaries Carrie and of Whitney Port are constructed in fashions that bow to old and tottering industries and value systems that have nothing to do with how anyone I know lives. That staging ground is unclear to me, though I know it cannot be the seductive schoolyard that is Brooklyn. Maybe there should be a diaspora, where everyone takes their work to Portland and Baltimore and Tampa and Phoenix, and we all meet back here on the internet to see what was done. The Tweet life aside, one really can access the internet from anywhere-but one can only divorce oneself from the aimless, strenuous feeling of wanting more and wanting out in equal parts when outside New York.
Daniel D'Addario has written about college for The Daily Beast and IvyGate and about movies for Newsweek.
Number one thing I will not miss about this city: all of the whinging, hand-wringing self obsession. The next person to publish an over-long searching exegesis on "the city and authenticity" is getting tied to a chair and left in the Times Square ESPN Zone until I feel you've learned your lesson.
Over on BUTT Magazine's blog right now there is something called "I Sucked Off an Iraqi Sniper", I enjoyed it.
My city? My city seems so authentic but I'm also scared about my city.
Should I move to Brooklyn?
Here's my prescription for your problem: Take a SuburbanKansasCity a day, and come back for a checkup in a month, to let me know how you feel. Bye!
It's possible to have an "urban" experience living in Kansas City. Not so much JoCo, obviously, but there is something - maybe not much, but something - to be said for living in the River Market et al. It is not comparable in any way to NYC but it is not necessarily in and of itself terrible.
I like KC a lot. Wife's from there.
@pete: yes it certainly is, and I lived downtown for several years. Honestly? I don't miss it. I suppose my point was, despite "cultural deprivation" or whatever the snobs want to call it, suburban remove has many, many plusses- provided you don't bite off more than you can chew in terms of distance/poor choice of location/taxes/mortgage etc. Peace and quiet (and central air-conditioning!), for one big plus.
@libmas: Many of my NYC friends have told me they miss it and wouldn't mind moving back. Of course I don't really believe them! But I know what they mean.
This may sound corny, but there's nothing more bucolic than driving home via Ward Parkway on a crisp Spring afternoon... all that green, green grass and money, I suppose.
That's not the issue here. It's not NYC or bust. There's Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Paris, Barcelona, etc. It's a bit ridiculous to think that everything outside NYC is shitty. It's not.
Some of us live in Los Angeles, even.
I wish I had read Dawn Powell before I lived in Manhattan rather than after I had left. Her New York novels made me miss the city enormously. As for the "should I stay or should I go?" That will not be answered until it is far too late.
My favorite thing about William Shawn is that he would eat corn flakes for lunch.
Also: Barbara Hershey PLEASE read to me at night. Ugh, that voice!
Admit it--you're leaving because Matt Cherette is moving to New York.
More like, nevermind, all that?
And the Heart Said Westchester.
But seriously, nothing in New York really exists if you're not in New York. Which is good! And bad. And just life, really.
Yup!
Also, cheesily, moving to New York completely, fundamentally changed my life in nearly all possible ways. So there's that.
And yup!
Mine too!
Good ways? Bad ways? Both, I presume.
mine too.. but leaving did too. Which may be to say, your life fundamentally changes when you change it (new city, new love, new job, new etc etc). NY is a great place but it is only one place.
NYC's relationship to creativity is more about networking than inspiration, I think (or about inspiration to the extent that proximity to other artists helps productivity).
Basically: good place to live if no one where else will do for your needs, be they personal/professional/creative/delusional. But if you want to leave, why the hell not? Everywhere else you'd consider is probably an easier place to get by. And hey! they probably have the internet in Westchester.
I bet you can't get a decent bagel.
That was beyond true of my college town backwater until the nice couple who used to run the biggest Jewish bakery in Jersey opted to retire here and open a place. Not only proper bagels but rugelach and dark rye!!! They have to call the lox salmon to attract the locals, but their names are definitely written in the book of life.
I promise that you can get a bagel in Westchester. How old is The Awl's average readership?
New York is not really a "now and then" city. If you don't love it, you won't learn to love it, and if there's someplace else you might be happy, you should go there rather than hanging around in the suburbs being wistful about fictional and/or long-dead New Yorkers.
I unreservedly love it here and have a hard time relating to this sort of thing.
That's kinda true. I mean, I think you're right that if you don't feel an unadulterated love for the city pretty quickly, you won't grow into that. But I also think a lot of people have a love-hate relationship with the city. I love it pretty fiercely, and get wistful just about every time Law & Order is on. But there's a lot that drove me nuts too, and unless someone dropped a shitload of cash in my bank account, I'd be hard-pressed to move back any time soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le5aIqn_MfE
They have a scene very like what you describe in Austin, TX (for serious, they do.)
Whenever I start feeling the need to start typing up long-winded rationalizations for leaving the city, I go home to Virginia. After a couple of days, I remember why I came here in the first place. Because everyone looks like they belong to the same gene pool down there. And it ain't a pretty one.
Degree inflation is everywhere.
Grade inflation too, if you're an English major who writes one-sentence paragraphs.
Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya on your way out, Daniel.
I've never once given a thought to my "New York Narrative" or how it compared to anyone elses, much less Whitney Port's, but examining it from here, my NY narrative is AWESOME. Stop thinking so hard, you're taking all the fun out of it.
Agreed! Um, especially compared to Whitney Port's?
I like the image of "a row of characters waiting their turn for a plot." As for an apartment in Westchester -- I heard New Rochelle is the new Chelsea. Enjoy that late night Stamford local, kiddo.
It's not where you are, it's what you're doing.
Your narrative isn't something you show up to receive. It's something you have to write one word at a time. New York is great for that because you can find lots of words here, in lots of languages. They're plastered on almost every surface.
"But when my friend, to whom I'd turned for advice in the past, told me to "maintain my momentum," I wondered towards what destination momentum was meant to carry me."
There's no manual for "satisfying life." You just keep throwing darts until you hit a target or change games.
You are the greatest.
(The three quarters of a bottle of cheap red wine I have consumed make that sentiment no less true.)
Three quarters of a bottle of cheap read wine have never made anything less true.
Also, seconded.
"But when my friend, to whom I'd turned for advice in the past, told me to "maintain my momentum," I wondered towards what destination momentum was meant to carry me."
Are you kind of reaching for an artistic thing? You have worked your way up through the editorial positions of power at a university filthy with turning out NY media elite. Are you artistically feigning a lack of destination now after years and years of hard work striving to achieve the editorial levels you achieved? I can certainly understand the well trod terrain of a love hate relationship with New York.
Your very bio on this piece betrays everything. A newly college grad with writing credits for Newsweek?! And you're morose and artfully adrift in the world of FEELINGS?! In New York City? I'm sorry but boo fucking hoo.
I've lived in other cities, all had their charms, but when I moved to the "schoolyard" Brooklyn of Williamsburg and environs, I knew it was for keeps. Surely, it's not for everyone. I definitely think large portions of my family and friends view my days spent gardening, cycling, and taking photos as an oddly extended adolescence. But I don't care! It's as close to heaven as any place I could dream up, and most of my friends live here.
I'm an artist, and my inspiration/narrative/plotline comes from within. I could be on an Antarctic base station and create! Creativity can happen anywhere, New York is unspecial in this regard. But the relatively relaxed Brooklyn-based lifestyle is ideal for my creative process, and it seems to suit so many of my peers as well. A certain ratio of density/money/space has made Brooklyn my muse, even though I pay half my income in rent. Laugh if you want, and leave if you don't feel the same.
I like living here! But comments like this make me feel very ill-suited to it. Brooklyn is your MUSE? Not even a little self-consciousness about how your willingness to spend half your income on rent directly results in the displacement of thousands of residents?
You know, the NSF has funding for artists to go to the Antarctic (http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=12783&org=OPP). Go ahead!
@dham: My going to Antarctica is not going to reverse the tide of gentrification.
You know, as long as you're waiting for New York to happen to you, it'll never really happen. This is just a place. Sure, it's a place with lots of interesting people and things etc. But the people who are most often profoundly disappointed by their experience here are the ones who secretly hoped this city would make them more exciting than the boring person they suspect themselves to be deep down inside.
Don't get me wrong, this city is an amazing place that will give you lots of space to be yourself, whoever that is. But that's about all it'll help you be. Well, that and sometimes it'll help you have an amazing inflated sense of self-importance, which burns out quickly, and then drives you, bitter and disillusioned, to the suburbs where you make a career out of writing about how New York is a soulless, godless place. Overall though? I kind of feel like to be happy here you just need to get over it.
Then again, I've lived here all my life and have seen lots of people come and go. So forgive me if I don't have a lot of patience for people fawning over their brief NYC "experience"
After you leave New York, you will never again feel at home.
That 'strenuous feeling of wanting more' sounds like the constant need to improve and develop, rather than wallow in content. I believe that feeling fuels revolutions, both personal and cultural.
The creator might never live up to his own expectations, but at least he is creating. You're retreating from the forefront under the guise of superiority, but you're really just admitting that you feel like a failure under the burden of the New York Way that you've constructed. If that's the case, you've lost out.
You sound like our parents' generation, only you've replaced their cautious optimism with ironic sniping and self-aggrandizing.
Most hilarious is your assertion that Tampa, of all places, should be anyone's destination. No one in Tampa really wants to stay there. I could see it in their eyes over the five years I lived there. St. Petersburg or Sarasota are beautiful, but they exist under an understood pretext: there is no real movement. Stagnant and listless is the status quo. Art galleries fail, coffee shops go under, bold restaurants buckle. That isn't capitalistic failure, that is mediocrity inherent in a population that won't leave their fucking houses.
At least here in New York they walk outside and taste the air, crackling with possibilities. How does that Westchester air taste?
Too busy living my life in New York; didn't read.
HAHAHAHahahaha. Win.
Seriously who is this douche bag?
"Daniel D'Addario's Musings" is brought to you by U-Haul.
I wouldn't trade New Orleans for a thousand New Yorks. Unfortunately, my lovely city's going to go under, and I don't know where to go from here.
:'(
Well if anyone needs a reason to leave New York this is it.
Lately, this city seems to be populated by a generation self-obsessed slackers wondering why their lives aren't as awesome as their parents promised when they graduated from Yale.
Moving to Westchester is probably the best thing for them. They can revert back to the suburban lifestyle they grew up with and are all secretly looking for in New York.
You don't need a new narrative you need to get over yourself and actually do something with your life.
I'm not sure why all the hate for this piece. It's not how I see the city or the choice to live here, but that's a thing I like about it.
The first year or so after I moved here - straight from college, and having grown up in the suburbs nearby - family and whatnot would always ask me, in that annoying grownup way, "So, how do you like living in the city?" And I'd shrug and be like, I dunno, it's where I live. I grew up with it a short drive away and moved here because I did theatre, and because that's where my friends were moving. I never thought hard about it.
In a couple of years, though, I started realizing that I'd, by default or accident, moved somewhere I loved. Maybe I'm not connected enough into the creative striving or the hipsterworld, though theatre was its own whatever... but I just see it as the place I've chosen to live. Because my friends are here, my family is close, because it's interesting and full of stuff going on. And so many people - so many like me and so many so different. There is art, there is theatre, there are beautiful parks and beautiful buildings and you can walk everywhere and the subways run all night.
But that's why I'm still here. For some people the bad and busy stuff overwhelms, but then they've just discovered that this is not the place for them to live. A decision and thought process and introspection/interrogation I am interested to hear about.
tl;dr
Manhattan, (as with Miami Beach following "Miami Vice") became a little over exposed due to the media driven visions put forth (primarily) by "Sex In The City" and NYC based TV shows ... the result is still being played out.
The NYC snobbery in some of these comments is stifling. I was going to quote a few of the most painfully self-aggrandizing clichés, but to avoid being trollish I'll just issue a general "give me a fucking break."
It's a great city - I love your food and your subway system and your history and lots else - but great cities abound. New York might be perfect for you personally, but that doesn't mean it has some special magic creative sparkle other cities can only envy.
Unique? Sure! More unique than every other unique city on the face of the planet? Hardly.
Hush up, haters. Home is where your community resides - for D'Addario, the literary bright ones might be lurking on the Internet. For others, small town socials and grassroots art collectives. Place and creativity are linked in surprising ways, and deconstructing the NYC mecca is useful for young'uns who ditch their functional environments and spend 75% of their income on rent (shut up!). Nice piece.
I siiiing the body electric!
Um, he moved to Westchester folks. Do any of you know where that is? Why not headline the piece: YOUNG NY MEDIA TYPE MOVES JUST OUTSIDE CITY: BROOKLYN WEEPS?
I ended up in New York essentially by accident (NYU was the 'best' school I got into), and what really shocked me about living here is how many people have such a fetishized notion of the city -- yeah it can be cool, but yeah it can be really shitty too. Way too many people try to force being a 'city girl (or gay)' onto themselves. For a select few creative- or business-types it really works and they achieve success not possible many other places in the country (or the world). The other 90% end up as overworked, underpaid executive assistants that take the abuse because they think their life is like some glamorous movie set just because they saw Marc Jacobs at Starbucks once, when paralegals in Topeka have lives just as cool as they do ...