April 6, 2014

"What does it suggest that a man who endured the crack epidemic, the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and at least a dozen arrests..."

"... can no longer stand what the city has become?"

38 comments:

Wince said...

"What does it suggest that a man who endured the crack epidemic, the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and at least a dozen arrests..."

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
'Til it's gone

Will said...

Wow, if the Onion wrote this as satire, they would not have to change a word.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"On the one hand, corporate money was pouring in; on the other, Mr. Patterson was making custom baseball caps for rebel celebrities like Matt Dillon and Gus Van Sant.

Then, on August 6th, 1988..."

These idiots were never rebels and not celebraties in 1988.

What the Hell is going on at the NY Times? What did Bush do to them that they can't write with coherence?

tim maguire said...

That world has been gone for a while. The cost of living in New York long ago killed the ability to take risks. Obviously, some people are just fine with that, and some will post here insisting that everybody should be fine with that.

Strelnikov said...

Nothing.

sane_voter said...

I am sure Austria will appreciate now being home to an artist comparable to Renior, Rembrandt and Michelangelo.

Michael K said...

Sounds like an even trade in the IQ department. DeBlasio in, Patterson out.

David said...

Having just watched a documentary of the 1863 "Draft Riots" (which were also race riots), I'm not impressed by this particular disturbance in the force.

Good luck to him in Austria, though. I's sure it will be much better there.

David said...

More evidence of What New York Has Become (from Rachel Tepper, Yahoo's "Associate Food Editor"):

The first time I spoke with Tom Kehoe, the owner of seafood distributor K&B Seafood, it was 7:55 a.m. on a Monday and I’d just been jolted awake by his phone call.

"We oyster people are early risers,” he apologized a few hours later at Grand Central Oyster Bar, New York City’s hallowed hall of clamorous oyster worship.


Oh my goodness! Jolted awake at 7:55 AM on a Monday by an oyster person. How did she ever make it through the afternoon?

Valentine Smith said...

You can never stand in the same river twice. All geezers lament the passing of the Golden Age that wasn't.

Not to worry, I'm sure he'll pocket at least a cool million for that building from that corporatist scum he despises so much.

cubanbob said...

If I were a sane resident of NYC I would say to him goodbye, good riddance and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

robinintn said...

He needs to hightail it to Detroit.

jr565 said...

NY is boring. Plain and simple. And homogenized. And for rich people.

Tari said...

Oh, what a sad story! The True Rebel, owner of a +$6 million building in NYC (zillow.com valuation), forced to sell out and move away! I hope the itty-bitty Alpine flowers console him in his new home.

Bob R said...

I suggest a modicum of self-awareness. The left has gained power in the presidency, the senate, the house, the supreme court. More locally NYC is run by ... hell, you describe him...and things get worse instead of better. Some leftists think that if we throw the climate deniers in jail, fire everyone who voted for Proposition 8, and confiscate all wealth greater than theirs, all of society's ills will be cured. Those who are more aware feel the need to go and hide.

Paddy O said...

"I might think that I’m the king of the world, but the truth is there’s no appreciation here for what I do or what I’ve done."

Welcome to human life.

Eric said...

I suppose he is donating the building he owns to other members of the community of artists instead of reaping a massive profit on it.

Wilbur said...

I guess there's an reading audience for this.

One that never tires of reading about how New York City eccentrics are endlessly fascinating.

It would be difficult for me to care less.

Krumhorn said...

Big Sunday afternoon.....<....Yawn......>

- Krumhorn

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Incredibly, money doesn't chase crime and squalor. And the irony of the NYT doucheoisie bemoaning that fact defies comment.

bandmeeting said...

It doesn't mean one blasted thing.

traditionalguy said...

So Bohemians need a free urban cultural mix... like the one in Bohemia which is nestled between the Bavaria and Austria.

Anthony said...

It is like the folks in my family who stayed in Williamsburg Brooklyn, complaining about the artists moving in then the yuppies moving in. And the few that are still there complain about the bankers moving in. It must have been nice in the old days, when everyone on the block or their parents came from the same village outside Naples, but times change.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

David,

Oh my goodness! Jolted awake at 7:55 AM on a Monday by an oyster person. How did she ever make it through the afternoon?

Enh. I get up at 5 a.m. myself; by 7:55 I'm generally a couple of miles from home.

Anonymous said...

Bad Ischl?

Wolfgangsee to the North or Hallstättersee to the South are nicer spots. I guess $6m doesn't buy you lakefront...

Robert Cook said...

"I suggest a modicum of self-awareness. The left has gained power in the presidency, the senate, the house, the supreme court."

I'd suggest a modicum of awareness of reality on your part. There is no part of your sentence that is true.

Robert Cook said...

It's a terrible shame to see the NYC vanish that was cheap (and tawdry) enough to support the influx of young, new aspiring artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, dancers, etc. Of any new cohort of these, only a few--if that--would or will ever rise to prominence or influence in their areas of endeavor, but such artists need a community of like-minded peers in which to thrive.

As NYC becomes a habitat for only the wealthy, aspiring artists will go elsewhere--Detroit, perhaps, or other similarly ruined American cities--but this will be NYC's loss.

amielalune said...

What a loss! Sorry, I can't say that with a straight face. I know he is considered a role model for New Yorkers by the NYT.

Glad you read this crap, Professor. I can't stomach the rag myself, but it's fun to have a laugh at their more idiotic offerings.

mccullough said...

Another senior with the Get Off My Lawn attitude.

HG said...

As a 52 year old native new yorker I say ..you have got to be kidding me..cry me a river and.. go....

HG said...

The energy is gone. My community is gone. I’m getting out. But the sad fact is: I didn’t really leave the Lower East Side. It left me.”

kinda the way i feel about the Democratic Party

HG said...

Jolted awake at 7:55 ? please ..ready for lunch by then

harkin said...

Remember when Vanity fair showed male models sporting the hip "Travis Bickle" look?

"Outlaw artist" is just another way to say village idiot.

Anonymous said...

If we keep passing shitty laws written by less radical geezers, art can be just as homogenized and bland as his neighborhood.

'I saw your piece outside the Department of Education, the red metal doughnut thing. Yeah, near the elevators.

It changed my life!'

Anonymous said...

Hey Cook, you socialist, have you ever stopped to consider that the liberated collective of artistic individuals at its worst gets exterminated or hired to make propaganda, or more likely around these parts just drifts us into a bland corporatist/Statist bureaucracy?

And yet you'll still be bitching about the rich and the inequality of it all.

Take off the Euro-glasses, the prescription's from 1850.

Sam L. said...

I cannot care enough to comment, except to refuse to.

eddie willers said...

Hmmm....a 65 year old man being more concerned with getting warm than continuing a Bohemian lifestyle.

Enlightenment eventually comes to all.

Bilwick said...

I'm a libertarian, but I have to agree with Mr. Cook on this. I lived in Manhattan during the "Taxi Driver" era, and for all the bad parts (especially the crime, when it was like Manhattan was under the rule of an occupying army of ghetto "youths"), and it was great in ways that the Dumbest Generation and the new Yuppies will never understand. For one thing, everyone I knew read books! Can you imagine that?!