Text 2954, 76 rader
Skriven 2004-12-07 09:02:40 av Philip Lozier (1:267/169)
   Kommentar till text 2924 av Björn Felten (2:203/2)
Ärende: NYC
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 PL>> I was born in NYC, and left that jungle at my first opportunity... now
 PL>> THAT was common sense!

 BF>    Judging by what I was told by some NYC natives, when I
 BF> was there a couple of years ago, it seems they have
 BF> pulled their act together recently and cleaned the city
 BF> up fairly well.

I left NYC in 1987... at that time they were beginning to clean things up...
over the years since then I do know that the crime rate has gone down, and the
areas where tourists are apt to go have been cosmeticly uplifted.

 BF>    Could of course be just an attempt by the natives to
 BF> paint their home town in lighter colours, just to attract
 BF> tourists,

Bingo...

 BF> but I travelled a lot across most of Manhattan,

Look at the size of manhattan in proportion to the rest of NYC... a bug splat
on a rearview mirror comes to mind.

 BF> including Central Park after dark,
 BF> and I saw nothing
 BF> scary or disturbing anywhere.

That's interesting, because when in my late teens and early 20's I used to hang
out in Central Park on the weekends quite a bit,
over by the bandshell.  Alot of people used to go there.  A regular party
atomoshphere.  Music going on a dozen or more "boom boxes", people dancing,
roller skating, could buy beer from enterprising individuals who had their
coolers there for that purpose (even though that practice was illegal, the cops
didn't care... everybody was having fun and not getting crazy or violent)...
the mid 80's were a good time for that area of the pak.  I have no idea if
anything like that still goes on there, but I kind of doubt it.  Of course,
people stayed in that one area... Central park is a huge place, and if you
wandered off into remote areas you -could- find things you didn't want to.

 BF>    Even the NYC subway gets top grade, the best one I've
 BF> seen anywhere, and that includes London's Underground and
 BF> Paris' Metro.

They've beefed up the cosmetics of alot of stations in areas that have heavy
traffic and where tourists might be, but again... size... the subway is huge
and in most areas the stations look no different than they did 40 or more years
ago,
with the exception that the lighting is flouresant.

All in all, its still a cesspool... I'm somewhere between 150-165 miles away,
and here an average person can make just as much money as in NYC, and for half
or even less the expense live a higher and more satisfying quality of life.

For the most part, I don't miss living there .. some things I do miss are the
quality of the food in restaraunts in comparisson to here... NYC seems to have
better "fast food" than alot of the restaraunts here claiming to be of high
quality.  I miss "on the corner" convenience.  I miss the way people mind their
own business... here everybody wants to know what everbody is doing every
minute of the day, and they gossip about it, while in NYC it's a "live and let
live" society.  People don't care what somebody else is doing, and don;t want
to know.  That's really all I miss, and in comparison to the benefits of -not-
living there, I can live without those minor things.

In your travels btw, if you are ever to be in NYC again, give me a hollar... It
only takes me about 3 hours to get there, and I still have family there... my
grnadmother on E. 3rd St in Manhattan, in the same place since 4 or 5 months
after she came to this country in 1954, and Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins who live
on Staten Island.

I could meet up with you along your way down there and visit my family too :) 
Let me know if you're ever to be in that area again.

Phil

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