New York has always been a city that will either make you or break you. Granted, I am a third generation New Yorker, so I have a somewhat jaded view of this. As someone who has experienced the “make you” part a few times in my short, but certainly robust 49 years on this mudball, I can appreciate it. Yet given my recent health crisis, I am also far too familiar with the toll that the “break you” part takes on not just the body, but the soul. The question so many should start asking themselves about either being made or broken is, “Is it worth it?”
There really is no short or correct answer for this. Everyone is different. As someone whose family has thrived here for three generations, it breaks my heart to say that I can’t tell people to stay. This is 2025, not 1995. Back then if someone told me they were leaving, they were essentially dead to me. Today, I support their decision without question. Why?
Partly it’s because I have gotten older, dare I say wiser. No sane person could possibly tolerate how poorly the people of the City of New York and the State of New York have been treated by our “elected officials” over the last 20 years. Between their “rules for thee but not for me” attitude and the endless fees, taxes, and fines they have enacted, it is sickening. And with the quality of life being what it is today, not to mention the most out of control basic costs of living, most people being of sound mind and body would leave. Shocking, I know. It took 9/11 and 20 years of corrupt mayors to make me feel this way.
Gone are the days of the grit and grind our fair metropolis was once known for. And to be clear, that grit I am referring to isn’t what they laughably call “graffiti” or “filth” these days. The grit from my upbringing was real. It was hard. And it was bold. Today’s “grit,” much like the rest of the city, is a plasticized version of reality – almost Matrix-like in its presence. The days of street murals and tags by names like Lady Pink and Kenny Scharf are no more. They’ve been replaced by stenciled nonsense and kids with cans they have no business spraying creating things that look more like Rorschach tests than street art. As to the grind I referenced, well, we all know the pandemic played a large role in the end of what used to be the “New York Workday” of a minimum of 12 hours. That has become few and far between, relegated to low-level bankers desperate to become the whales of Wall Street. Add to it the mollycoddling of two generations that resulted in pure mediocrity, and you have the perfect soup of failure. There is no initiative like there used to be out there unless you were born to hustle. Again, those folks are few and far between. When I was a kid, the notion of the hustle and bustle was prominent. Today it is referred to as the workforce’s white whale.
Language is important and needs to be respected. The reality is that people live in silos versus the neighborhoods we used to. All under the guise of supporting your “community.” Community refers more to race, creed and sexual preference than it does geography.I am all for people coming together for a common cause, but the language only serves to divide people from across different demographics. In other words, it’s a way for our so-called “political leaders” to divide and distract. Another example is the homeless population.
Remember when we were referred to them as “bums”? Now they’re called the “unhomed.” George Carlin is rolling over in his grave. And that change is by political design to distract from the reality that many of these people are in-fact homeless because of the decisions by politicians that are never held accountable.
THE FINAL WORD
Despite my negativity on the matter, somehow there is a part of my DNA, my very soul, that tells me the real New York will return. No, I don’t know when that will happen. What I can say is that New York is one of those anomalies in our world that while it evolves, its core stays the same. There will always be that grit, that grind and the sheer will of steel to move mountains at a moment’s notice – which has become the exception versus the norm it once was in our city. Despite this, I have a feeling that our version of Metropolis will return sooner than some think; the place where fortunes are made, fame and notoriety are earned on the street, neighborhoods take care of each other and politicians are fleeting bugs on the windshield of life.