Living Bigger than Life (in small spaces)
Friends and I were dwelling into mobidity during dinner. Stuff that we try to venture on to try to sound smart but are really desperately attempting to just ruin each other's appetite. Then someone made mention of how freaky it would be to be buried alive and then wake up to find yourself trapped in a sealed coffin.
In chorus we all rang out: we know the feeling, we live in Manhattan!
So how does it feel like to live in those notoriously tiny shoe boxes that cost a leg and a limb?
Personally, my opinion is you deal with it. So fret, rant and grunt - your apartment is small. I look on the bright side: I am in Manhattan.
You want 'cheaper' and bigger space? Move upstate or be a Jersey girl. Input your transport expense and it piles up to a very miserable life commuting on trains or buses with smelly old snoring men (my opinion). Or you can own a car, drive and not meet anyone because you are encased in metal from point A to point B - ALONE. You want big spaces and cheap real estate - move 3,000 miles away from the center of the universe.
To prove my point.....COMPARE: greatest city in the world (per Dave Letterman) one bedroom co-op apartment (550 sf) in Gramercy - $450,000; four bedroom, three bathroom brand new house (3,980 sf) in Portland, Oregon - $350,000. You want space? Retire to Port-frigging-land, Oregon. You want life? Cram yourself in a shoebox in Manhattan.
Pros of living in New York City:
*you don't go ballistic when the gas prices go up, you don't deal with car check-ups and maintenance and insurance. Why? You have no car! You don't NEED a car. If anywhere within the tri-state area is your destination - a bus, a train or a boat will take you there. Desperately needing a car and then you can go rent a car. Go to the shop, pick up the keys, drive, return, refill the gas tank, drop off vehicle and get on with life.
*everything happens here. THIS, girlfriend, is the center of the universe, must I say again? Tune in your radio and you hear songs from Broadway's shows, songs about falling in love in New York, dreaming big and moving to the big city. Why again, are all the great movies about romance about the Empire State Building and Manhattan? And if I would please be allowed to promote: The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman starts April 22 and it was filmed at the UN Headquarters. The first movie ever to get into the General Assembly Hall.
*This is home to the people who know how to have fun, those who know how to twist life to make it more interesting - i.e. Seinfeld, Sex and the City, Friends, Will and Grace. It is every true to life in: CSI, Law and Order and NYPD Blues but that should fall under the Cons part...teehee.
*Shopping is a sport here. The whole city is a big mall!
*The streets are a buffet of good looking men and women! And always so fashionable no matter what time of the day, season or weather. I just love observing the Manhattanite's sense of flair and that everyone is comfortable with looking and smelling good (ooops, well, most of them anyways). No wonder when the weather gets mild people sit outdoors to eat their meals - it is because people watching has become a common and pleasurable past time!
*Free entertainment. Everything that happens everywhere can only happen in New York. Like tiny vignettes of life encapsuled in fragments of bit and pieces scattered in every street corner.
*Everything comes for free or cheap, if you know where to look. Pastries and bread at Au Bon Pain is 50% off after 7PM; restaurants give you a free food sampling outside to entice you to sit and dine; you can go to any Barnes and Noble, get a magazine or a book from the shelf and sit in a corner (yup, they provide seats, and if it is full, flop in a corner and no one will bother you) to read your stuff. There are wine tastings and most restaurants have a pre-fixed menu that gives you a three-course meal for $20.05 plus tax. Even the expensive restaurants you only hear the venue/name droppers drool about. Concerts are free at the parks in the summer evenings when the daylight hours are long.
Cons of living in Manhattan:
*it is expensive here. Not just the rent but going out (because there are so many places to go to: Broadway, the clubs, the movies, concerts, Knicks games, Yankee games...Mets? Who are they?...)
*well, you will live ina shoebox. Rent is about the same as the salary of a mid/upper-level manager in another country. You want space, you shrink the unnecessary - the TV, the ref, the bed and the sink. Your furniture cannot be those bulky kind your grandmother owned.
*You try harder to look good because competition is tough out there. The good side of this is you don't ever find yourself slipping away into hohum-land in terms of looks. You have greater vaue of yourself - you work out, you eat right and you associate yourself with the same kind of people. That my friend means you spend more in looking good. Go back to first item bulleted in this category....it is expensive here!
*You get used to the noise, the crowd, the fast pace of life (because you are constantly trying to compress as much as you can juice out of city living as you can).
*friends come to visit? Send them to a hotel...you have no space - hahaha!
*You don't develop that small town mentality in the crossroads of the world - all cultures, races, reliefs and all kinds of artistic inclination is represented here. This city is a petri dish of opinions and moral subscription. You find that you develop an uncanny way of processing your thoughts that you squirm when you hear your girlfriend's boyfriend fretting about trivialities...and she concurs. Ouch!
I will stop here because Michael just told me that the biggest CON factor about being a Manhattanite is that you become arrogant and self-centered because you thrive on the belief that there is no place better to live than New York City.
Hmmmm, but is there really any other?
Segue to exit music:
I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting awayI'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York.
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you............ New York, New York!!!
Tata-tarara...tata-tarara....!
In chorus we all rang out: we know the feeling, we live in Manhattan!
So how does it feel like to live in those notoriously tiny shoe boxes that cost a leg and a limb?
Personally, my opinion is you deal with it. So fret, rant and grunt - your apartment is small. I look on the bright side: I am in Manhattan.
You want 'cheaper' and bigger space? Move upstate or be a Jersey girl. Input your transport expense and it piles up to a very miserable life commuting on trains or buses with smelly old snoring men (my opinion). Or you can own a car, drive and not meet anyone because you are encased in metal from point A to point B - ALONE. You want big spaces and cheap real estate - move 3,000 miles away from the center of the universe.
To prove my point.....COMPARE: greatest city in the world (per Dave Letterman) one bedroom co-op apartment (550 sf) in Gramercy - $450,000; four bedroom, three bathroom brand new house (3,980 sf) in Portland, Oregon - $350,000. You want space? Retire to Port-frigging-land, Oregon. You want life? Cram yourself in a shoebox in Manhattan.
Pros of living in New York City:
*you don't go ballistic when the gas prices go up, you don't deal with car check-ups and maintenance and insurance. Why? You have no car! You don't NEED a car. If anywhere within the tri-state area is your destination - a bus, a train or a boat will take you there. Desperately needing a car and then you can go rent a car. Go to the shop, pick up the keys, drive, return, refill the gas tank, drop off vehicle and get on with life.
*everything happens here. THIS, girlfriend, is the center of the universe, must I say again? Tune in your radio and you hear songs from Broadway's shows, songs about falling in love in New York, dreaming big and moving to the big city. Why again, are all the great movies about romance about the Empire State Building and Manhattan? And if I would please be allowed to promote: The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman starts April 22 and it was filmed at the UN Headquarters. The first movie ever to get into the General Assembly Hall.
*This is home to the people who know how to have fun, those who know how to twist life to make it more interesting - i.e. Seinfeld, Sex and the City, Friends, Will and Grace. It is every true to life in: CSI, Law and Order and NYPD Blues but that should fall under the Cons part...teehee.
*Shopping is a sport here. The whole city is a big mall!
*The streets are a buffet of good looking men and women! And always so fashionable no matter what time of the day, season or weather. I just love observing the Manhattanite's sense of flair and that everyone is comfortable with looking and smelling good (ooops, well, most of them anyways). No wonder when the weather gets mild people sit outdoors to eat their meals - it is because people watching has become a common and pleasurable past time!
*Free entertainment. Everything that happens everywhere can only happen in New York. Like tiny vignettes of life encapsuled in fragments of bit and pieces scattered in every street corner.
*Everything comes for free or cheap, if you know where to look. Pastries and bread at Au Bon Pain is 50% off after 7PM; restaurants give you a free food sampling outside to entice you to sit and dine; you can go to any Barnes and Noble, get a magazine or a book from the shelf and sit in a corner (yup, they provide seats, and if it is full, flop in a corner and no one will bother you) to read your stuff. There are wine tastings and most restaurants have a pre-fixed menu that gives you a three-course meal for $20.05 plus tax. Even the expensive restaurants you only hear the venue/name droppers drool about. Concerts are free at the parks in the summer evenings when the daylight hours are long.
Cons of living in Manhattan:
*it is expensive here. Not just the rent but going out (because there are so many places to go to: Broadway, the clubs, the movies, concerts, Knicks games, Yankee games...Mets? Who are they?...)
*well, you will live ina shoebox. Rent is about the same as the salary of a mid/upper-level manager in another country. You want space, you shrink the unnecessary - the TV, the ref, the bed and the sink. Your furniture cannot be those bulky kind your grandmother owned.
*You try harder to look good because competition is tough out there. The good side of this is you don't ever find yourself slipping away into hohum-land in terms of looks. You have greater vaue of yourself - you work out, you eat right and you associate yourself with the same kind of people. That my friend means you spend more in looking good. Go back to first item bulleted in this category....it is expensive here!
*You get used to the noise, the crowd, the fast pace of life (because you are constantly trying to compress as much as you can juice out of city living as you can).
*friends come to visit? Send them to a hotel...you have no space - hahaha!
*You don't develop that small town mentality in the crossroads of the world - all cultures, races, reliefs and all kinds of artistic inclination is represented here. This city is a petri dish of opinions and moral subscription. You find that you develop an uncanny way of processing your thoughts that you squirm when you hear your girlfriend's boyfriend fretting about trivialities...and she concurs. Ouch!
I will stop here because Michael just told me that the biggest CON factor about being a Manhattanite is that you become arrogant and self-centered because you thrive on the belief that there is no place better to live than New York City.
Hmmmm, but is there really any other?
Segue to exit music:
I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting awayI'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York.
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you............ New York, New York!!!
Tata-tarara...tata-tarara....!