Results tagged “yuppies”

A tenant war broke out recently when one Upper West Side co-op was considering taking a common area and fancifying it into a new playroom for the buildings' kids, nowadays apparently too good to just hide inside the Hamburglar's Head all day. The spat pitted the classic battle of Mommies versus Bodies, the contingent of self-improving residents who wanted to put in a gym. Throw in one crank calling to "get rid of it! It’s a waste of money and it’s taking up storage space that we need," add a touch of winning rhetoric on the parents' part that apparently included an "Obamaesque way of phrasing things," and it sounds like a classic battle in yuppieland. Apparently this kind of madness is becoming more common in the high-stakes world of children's playrooms in buildings, which can cost up to six figures and include amenities such as trapezes(!).

Is Park Slope ready for its close up? The Post is reporting that the 'nabe may be getting the Star treatment, that is...the Darren Star treatment. He's "teamed with Sony and NBC for a proposed series about a group of affluent characters who live in the upscale Brooklyn neighborhood."

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a baby locked in a car in Staten Island, a near drowning at a West 14th St. YMCA in Manhattan, and a shooting at Randall and Rosedale Aves. in the Bronx.
• New York remains alive and well, as someone decided to throw a guerilla dinner party at the World's Fair site in Flushing Corona, Queens.
• A Brooklyn swimmer, who shockingly admits that he has no idea what it would cost and admits that his motivation is selfish, wants a Prospect Park pool. In a city of know-everything advocacy, we can't wait to jump in this guy's pool for a bracing shock of anachronism.
• State Assembly members passed a bill that would make the sale of a game to a child that included "rape, dismemberment, physical torture, mutilation, or evisceration of a human being". Watching the local news is apparently still ok, though.
• Subway-themed condoms are being distributed at almost double the prior rate. Nearly ten million have been distributed in the three months since they were introduced.
• Hmm, Scylla and Charybdis for many readers here: tweens vs. yuppies in Park Heights robberies, wherein follow-up investigations have the the cops use the term "odd" repeatedly. Also, possibly the greatest Wanted poster ever for people tired of random-looking black men.
• The chemical explosion the other day, that had many disputed causes (firecrackers, a car running over a bottle), was caused by chemicals mixed by a pair of 13-year-olds.
• Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council were set on revamping trash-hauling out of the city, but State Assembly leader Sheldon Silver's district is located in Chelsea, and the new trash site is located exactly smack-dab in Silver's district.
• Wow, it doesn't apparently take rocket scientists to swindle fake brain surgeons.

Photo by kimyo at flickr

Last year around this time, the Observer pitted Williamsburg hipsters and Park Slope yuppies against each other. This year, the Observer tackles the yearning some native New Yorkers have for when NYC was bad (sorta like Michael Jackson video Bad!). Summer of Sam, Needle Park, Ford telling the city to drop dead, all of it seems better than it is now. Here's what some people told the Observer:

- “I was flashed all the time—that’s how a true private all-girl kid learned about the male anatomy,” wrote Liz Alderman, 32, a television producer and former Brearley lass, in an e-mail.

Continue reading "Old Naughty NYC Vs. Current Boring, Safe NYC"

The Summer of Love is back, and taking over New York for a 40th anniversary celebration spanning museums, theaters and screens. The NY Times takes a look at what to expect during this retrospective celebration:

Wow, some very wild data from the U.S. Census about the make-up of New York. Accordin to the NY Times, the number of Manhattan children under the age of 5 has increased by more than 32%, and half of that growth is attributed to wealthy white families. And get this:

The analysis shows that Manhattan’s 35,000 or so white non-Hispanic toddlers are being raised by parents whose median income was $284,208 a year in 2005, which means they are growing up in wealthier households than similar youngsters in any other large county in the country.

Continue reading "Manhattan Has the Richest White Toddlers In the Country"

I am Legend in Washington Square Park, by sdsparks.

Just in time for winter (as mild as it's been), LICNYC has created a Photo Tour of Long Island City. Photographs of buildings, restaurants, banks, and more are pinpointed on a Google Map. Our favorite spot noted on the might be the "Big rock that nobody owns." You can add your LIC shots by sending in your pictures to editor(at)licnyc(dot)com .

It was inevitable. The NY Times City section has a little feature about the Long Island City vs. Williamsburg as better place to live debate that emerged on the Queens West discussion board last month.

After what seems like decades of dragging its feet, it really is going to happen. After tonight's performance by Patti Smith, CBGB's will close its doors on the Bowery for the last time.

Drunks of all sorts, club kids, and winos. Late night workers, busboys, getting off their shifts. Only a handful of people per car. 6:1 male/female ratio.

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow.

- Why someone hates the Ten Commandments on YouTube

One morning Gothamist woke up with dreams of walking into the sunset with a taco in one hand and a Corona in the other. Thank goodness for friends who organize fabulously economical taco crawls, and doubly so for the welcoming dive bars of Sunset Park, a neighborhood still scant of those Williamsburg Hipsters and Park Slope yuppies. Take the N/R to 59th street in Brooklyn and follow this route for an afternoon of sure-fire and filling fun:

Forget arguing over whether uptown or downtown Manhattan is better - the new fighting is about what's better, Williamsburg or Park Slope. There's a hilarious Observer article about the psychological divide between residents of hipper, edgier enclaves like Williamsburg and Greenpoint and those of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Boerum Hill. Yes, hipsters may lives in South (Gentrified) Brooklyn and yuppies may have condos in North (Gentrified) Brooklyn, but that doesn't matter - it's all about the state of mind - and a state of dress and other stuff. You're vintage-clothes wearing, kickball-playing, getting-drunk-all-the-time, crunchier liberal arts shools-graduates if you live in Williamsburg, you're a stroller-pushing, contemporary-literary-fiction-reading, $200-jean-wearing, Ivy League graduate if you live in Park Slope. It all makes so much sense now! Maybe if the G train ran better, maybe there wouldn't be such hostility. But we can't wait for the remake of the Warriors, where it'll be a gang running from the cooler-than-thou types in one nabe into the young-settled-couples in another.

Bring back the Tompkins Square Park band shell!

Also entering its fifth year, Stereogum.com has been named Best Music Blog by Spin, Teen People and Forbes. Even Newsweek thinks it's hot. The site examines music through the prism of popular culture, and with over 500,000 unique visitors a month, it's safe to say it's the place for "indie yuppies" to discover the latest buzz bands. Site founder Scott Lapatine was recently ranked USAToday.com's 76th Top Person of 2005. Scott will be joined on the decks by co-bloggers Jim Jazwiecki and Jed Teres.

Are you going to Central Park one more time this weekend to see The Gates? Here's Christo and Jeanne-Claude's site on The Gates. And the hansom cab drivers of Central Park love The Gates for giving them business - so many small industries the saffron sheets have affected!

After a year of build up, the NYC Subway system officially turns 100 today. We love how the NY Times' Randy Kennedy starts his feature about the subway's 100th year (which has some nice interactive features as well):

For a New Yorker just one day shy of turning 100 years old, the subway kept crazy hours yesterday. In other words, there were no hours it did not keep. As its neighbors around the world locked up their stations and turned out their lights, the subway started a new day, just as it has more than 36,000 times since Oct. 27, 1904.

Of course, Gothamist is worried that the subway will no longer be the 24 hour party animal with looming budget problems, but we're going to try to stay focused on the wonders the subway does bring us. Today, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, Ms. Subways, and other dignitaries will take a nostalgia train from City Hall Station, to reenact the first subway ride 100 years ago to the day by Mayor McLellan. They will be riding in this train, the Lo-V train, to 42nd Street. And City Hall station was recently reopened for the event, though it's just a temporary opening; here's a gallery of City Hall station, which is a truly dazzling station (chandeliers!) and makes Gothamist wish it could be open permanently. And the Straphangers are offering a slice of Junior's cheesecake to the first 100 people to sign a birthday card to the subway at the Municipal Arts Society's Urban Gallery (457 Madison Avenue at 51st Street) starting at 1:30PM in Midtown, according to Newsday.

Melody Henry, Lucky 13 Co-Owner

Gothamist on plans to make Coney Island a year-around destination. Tien on a trip to Coney Island, Slice's Coney Island pizza picks, and Satan Laundromat's pictures of Coney Island.

Gothamist on the Hasids vs. the Hipsters.

For more information about the proposed arena, check out Bring Basketball to Brooklyn!.

Two books that show the divide between the communities: The Hipster Handbook and Hasidic Williamsburg.

Brooklyn gets two new magazines: One, BKLYN, looks like something perfect for multi-culti yuppies on in Park Slope (okay, maybe that's the idea Gothamist gets from the cover, but wouldn't you?), whereas the other, NRG, seems just right for hip and politically motivated Clinton Hill and Fort Greene residents. According to the Times, the first issues of the magazines include:

Money magazine takes a look at yuppies who lost their jobs and are now "underemployed," taking lower paying gigs not only to make ends meet but to feel active and busy as well. Money calls these people, , "depressed urban professionals." The article mentions Martin Pierce, who runs a support group, WIND and says "For most Americans, their identity is tied up to what they do. Depression is very common with the unemployed." Depression is also common in the employed: Gothamist has been, at various times, employed and unempoyed, so according to our calculations, we've been depressed at least 12 cumulative years. But the key is not to accept the depression - staying active is critical (volunteer work is a good thing to do when not hustling for work). And talking to people who understand helps: Gothamist had other unemployed cronies, but we'd have gone to a support group if we'd known about them.