Old New York, New Again?

Note: I wrote this back on Oct 25, don't know why I didn't post it.

Cocktail chatter, if that term still applies in this most unromantic of times, has it that New York City is primed to become a more interesting place than it's been in years. Everything that economic boom times and Sex and the City and the uptowning of downtown wrought seems to be on the precipice. It could, if you can believe it, vanish into thin air.

It remains to be seen whether or not the current generation's creative class will deign to return to Manhattan (from Brooklyn, mostly) once the exodus of Gordon Gecko sycophants leaves a slew of empty apartments, their landlords lowering the rent in stubborn increments. It remains to be seen, even, whether or not the exodus will in fact come to pass.

It's a fine line between hoping for the end of the unfettered profligacy and realizing that you might concurrently be wishing for muggings, crack houses, homelessness, and all of the other urban ills that this city has recently seemed to have eradicated for good. In its entirety, no one wishes for a repeat of the 1970s. But many of us yearn for the return of a New York that celebrates creativity ingenuity, the exchange of thoughtful ideas that are not merely profit-minded, and heterodox lifestyles. Many of us are primed for a New York that is more Basquiat than Tinsley Mortimer, more Grand Central Station than Trump Tower, more Partisan Review than Gawker. We'll see.