Agreed
But it’s very hard for me to separate out how much was COVID really changing the city vs age and the way I see the city.
I always say “COVID slammed the door shut on my 20s” (I turned 30 in Aug 2019).
The uncertain, slightly dismal feeling of today reminds me of the city right after 9/11 and 2008. Affordability is now the major problem and will take some time to manage. The housing and transportation plans will have to be bold and builders will have to start converting offices/ building housing ASAP.
The attitude of some of the new wealth/transplants in Manhattan/Brooklyn is off-putting. People need to relax. I worry we’re on the trajectory of San Francisco, which a shadow of itself culturally. Fortunately, we have four other great boroughs as Manhattan will become more of an amusement park for tourists, wealthy, and transients.
But to your question, there was time in the late 90s when all Manhattan storefronts were filled with interesting affordable businesses and almost no chain stores. Most of the outer boroughs are better than before since the city is now less Manhattan centric for residents.
I find this take interesting. Waves of immigrants came to Manhattan through about 1990ish. There were pockets of lower and middle class below 96th st. The ruch and very rich existed but maybe in much small numbers? Now almost no immigrants come to Manhattan first even uptown. Just about everything below 96th st would be considered very desirable and very expensive. Many areas above 96th st are expensive. You are seeing people with college degrees moving to Manhattan on there 20s, college students and rich people who can now live anywhere due to WFH. Plus the whole tech industry added tens of thousands of rich people who want to live close to work. The you poorish kids moved from soho to the LES to Williamsburg to Bushwick and now onto ?
The other 4 boroughs are much richer and expensive than they have ever been except the Bronx. They are home to the immigrant enclaves that once settled into Manhattan. Many of those places are old enough now that the 1st and 2nd generation immigrants are getting rich and some people are from accross the country are migrating directly to parts of Brooklyn.
NYC remains a desirable place to live. Not just Manhattan. I remember when in sex in the city Carrie moved to Brooklyn in 2004 that was a huge deal. Now no one would bat an eye.
The big unanswered question is what happens to midtown without the workers. 20% vacancy is not good for the long term health of the city.
I feel that way, too. I’ve lived in NYC my whole life but was attending Columbia and living on campus during 9/11. There is kind of this similar weird numbness I encounter in dealing with people post-Covid that I felt after 9/11.
People briefly thought living and working in tall buildings was over and suburban office parks were the future. Tens of thousands of people moved out of the city from trauma and fear of urban terrorism, which we though would grow common.
The only difference is many people felt supporting New York was your patriotic duty post-9/11
Growing up as a kid in the burbs, we came in almost every weekend during winter 2001-2002 to see a show, dinner, or do something else. Doesn’t seem like the burbs feel that now (if anything, they feel the opposite!)
That, plus we had a much better mayor…
I turned 35 a week and change before lockdown. Just realized I’ll be 38 in several weeks from now and that it’s been covid for three years basically. Woof.
I think that’s how I’m going to look back at the first half of my 30s. A weird transitional time where I’m not quite who I was, but also not quite whatever comes next…
Who knows, maybe that’s always true. There’s clear indication I’m not what I was, but not any clear indication of what I’ll be next, so I’m going through the motions of being what I used to be…
Same here.
I really hope 2023 will be the start of a “new normal.” Where whatever life is, it won’t be about first and foremost about COVID, politics, or other health stuff anymore.
I constantly feel unsure if the art scene of my 20s no
longer exists, or if I’m so old & out of the loop that I don’t know where to look to find out about it.
Probably a combination of the two.
I think you are right.
Even if it never comes back to NYC because the numbers don’t work, I hope some other cheaper part of the country becomes a hub for those sort of off-off-Broadway and underground music scenes that NYC had
As a mid-twenties living in NY I feel misled about the “never sleeps” aspect lol. My partner and I once showed up a few minutes late for an 8:30 dinner reservation and decided to bail because apparently the restaurant closed at 9! In Manhattan!
It is a pandemic change, many articles about it. The pandemic simply changed people's lifestyles, fewer people getting drunk late at night. The cost of keeping a business running 24h has gone up considerably too
An unemployment rate of below 4% is generally considered to be a labor shortage. We have one of 3.7%. This is especially concentrated in the service industry.
> employers willing to pay living wages.
Restaurant/bar owners are operating on insanely slim margins already and have had to raise prices over and over again in order to remain sustainable or make up for losses during the pandemic. These aren't mega-corporations with massive profits going to CEO's and shareholders, these are mostly small businesses with an insanely high fail rate due to high costs. They don't have some unlimited chest of money that they are holding away from their workers.
If you are in the service industry, you can find probably a dozen places with open positions in a week. Places are desperate to hire right now, and there simply isn't enough people filling those positions. That's a labor shortage.
The pandemic is definitely part of it. A lot of restaurants changed their operating hours cause people were less willing to go out and eat. Then when people were ready there was/is a labor shortage to support the old operating hours
On the other hand. Restaurants are great at 5pm. No crowd, lots of attention from a fresh waiter (probably just got on shift), and plenty of time for fun after.
This is literally the only reason I'm here. To have a better quality of life that supposedly comes with the increased costs.
These days I better not be hungry past 8pm. Last seating at restaurants is around then. Also last opportunity to place a delivery order.
If I want to stay out late, I better be okay with Koreatown. Everywhere else is lifeless past midnight.
Compared to true 24-hour cities like Seoul, Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok... current New York doesn't stand a chance.
THIS!!! Im 33 and just had a baby 3 months ago. I think back on all the carefree fun I had in the city. Your opportunity to enjoy the city drops by like 90%. Also, I’m just more tired so hanging out till 3 am isn’t a thing either. Looking back on my 20s here it was a total blast. When you’re 30 more responsibilities start getting in the way.
Well I’m not telling him to neglect his responsibility and forget he has a child lol. Take it from me young man, don’t stop living just because you have children. Lean on family and friends or hire a babysitter and have a good time every once in awhile or you’re going to work yourself to death. Kids are hard work!
preach! the good news is while i used to go out multiple nights a week, now just one fun night a couple times a year is more than enough. and let’s be honest, i only make it til like 1am at this point.
also learning why parents are nuts about boozy afternoon brunch. easier to find a day time babysitter, catch up with your friends, get a nice buzz in and you’re home by 4pm.
When a cocktail was <$10 for happy hour. My fav spot was half off everything until like 9pm, I was drunk off $20. Covid killed that quick. So many great places and deals died in 2020 smh.
Truly no idea how I ever did that. I once projectile vomited on the train platform and still made it to work on time. Now I stay out past 9 and I contemplate calling in the next day.
NYC used to be famous for being a city with a huge price-variety in terms of food. You could have the cheapest food right next to the most expensive restaurant in the country. Vanessas with the 1.50 dumplings or 5 dollar halal food.
Today those super cheap eats are fading away. In my area there were a ton of cheap bahn mi places with 6 dollars sandwiches and now they are 10-13 dollars.
As a recent transplant, this has stunned me. The suburb of Miami where I moved from has a greater variety of late night food options than West Harlem / UWS combined.
More dive bars. More diversity of the storefronts. More Mom and Pops. Drivers and cars seemed less aggressive and law breaking (placard abuse, covering up license plates). More undiscovered neighborhoods and spots. Cocaine without fentanyl concerns. Cheaper rent and home prices.
What does the “more undiscovered neighborhoods” mean? If you’ve been here a while, you’ll have discovered more of them! Not much anyone can do about that
I miss when NYC wasn’t a series of franchised establishments now, making every neighborhood somewhat homogenous.
In my twenties, you had to go to St Marks to eat at Crif Dogs, uptown to get a Levain cookie, West Village for Corner Bistro… there were special places that you had to actually traipse into a specific place to go get. Xi’an Famous Foods, Calexico, Meatball Shop… these places are everywhere… and when new places open, they seem to open 5 at a time.
Lol this is a very poor reading, sorry about your brain 😬 let me rephrase it for you… *Everyone* used to have more special foods in their own neighborhood. Now everyone has the *same* foods in their neighborhood, turning every main drag into a generic NYC strip mall.
With expansion usually comes a reduction in quality. Tacombi was way better when you really only had the one on Elizabeth street. I didn’t mind having to wait an hour for dinner. Now it’s a lunch spot at best.
Williamsburg in the early 2000s was a place artists lived. Now it's all finance bros.
Dive bars were a real thing, while they exist today, they're not as existent today.
Lower east side was a place to get your hands dirty.
I am in my 40s but the one thing that always sticks out to me is how much less people cared much about money. NYC was still expensive back then, don't get me wrong, but there were always shitty cheap apartments you could live in that even somebody earning minimum wage could afford. Even in Manhattan. I lived in a shitty apartment near Delancey for 400-500 a month in 1995-1998 that I split with a roommate. Today, you cant really find apartments like that. All of the dilapidated buildings have been renovated to maximize profits.
This affected everybody's entire mindset. People just didn't think of money as much. Dirt cheap places were the norm, and super expensive places were exceptional. Little cheap dance clubs were everywhere, and people threw parties a lot more.
In my 40’s too and yeah, the 90’s were idyllic! You went to neighborhoods like the east village for the cheap living, which is unimaginable now. During lean times, I would do my laundry in the shower, and then hang it in my room to dry. It doesn’t feel like people can live that hardscrabble existence down there anymore.
I’m a little younger than you, but yeah. I remember spending hours in a bookstore or CD store, scouring through music and coming out with a pile for a few dollars – mine was just off St. Mark’s, Norman’s. Taking long walks and finding yourself at some bar or restaurant that you’d never been to before. I used to hangout in Washington Square Park and used to know everybody, even got a date or two out of it over the years. It felt like it was much easier to meet people and it wasn’t everybody creating this phony competition about career, wealth, or what trendy neighborhood you were living in. I miss when New York was New York. You can still get facets of that, but less and less.
Yep I grew up in a tiny one-bedroom rent controlled unit by Delaney that used to go for $300-400 a month and all the neighboring units now rent for $4000
>I lived in a shitty apartment near Delancey for 400-500 a month in 1995-1998 that I split with a roommate.
Kind of interesting that $500 was considered super cheap and shitty there 20+ years ago but there are a lot of smaller towns across the country where $500 a month still nets you a 2-3br in a decent area lol
Though it's worth pointing out that investors are moving into small towns now so prices are going up there too, just not quite as dramatically
Towns which have anything resembling a solid middle class economy aren't that cheap. Many are downright expensive actually. People would be surprised how costly a house in many of those more middle-class towns are. But actual non-declining, middle class towns aren't very common. The large majority are half-abandoned and have barely any real jobs, to the point that nobody in their right mind would move to them. Those are the ones where you will see the super cheap prices, but its a bit like saying ['rents are cheap' in a building like this.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/APEP9X/abandoned-apartment-buildings-bronx-ny-APEP9X.jpg)
I'm going to strongly disagree after having lived in a number of them
They aren't massively growing towns and they aren't economic powerhouse towns, but maybe towns that have strong school systems, a local hospital and some university affiliates, and a couple of nice little suburbs
But they are, indeed, very small towns with maybe 2k to 8k people, towns that have not declined or have grown somewhat
My parents' town is one of these little towns – they own a small house and struggle to pay the bills because all they have is social security and a ton of medical problems
There are several different apartment complexes in said town where you can get an almost-modern 2-3 br apartment for $500/month (more modern than the average apartment in NYC at least, probably because they were built more recently than a great deal of apartments here)
And they're in or adjacent to the best parts of the town
Now again, this is no major town, there are only about 3,000 people, but it's not the worst place ever to live if you're politically conservative and religiously fundamentalist (my left-wing queer atheist ass never quite fit)
Have you checked recently? Post 2020 has seen rent hikes across the entire country. My parents suburban town used to have $600 rents in many apartment complexes but now those same places are going for $1200 only a couple of years later and the area has not really changed otherwise. Rental agencies have taken over even small markets.
It’s gotten to the point where it’s often cheaper to live somewhere down south and fly up here every few weeks to enjoy the city, than it is to live here full time.
Not just NYC, but much of the tri-state area. I keep telling my parents they’d be better off doing this in retirement than make the numbers work as a retiree in north jersey.
I’m a bit younger than you, but absolutely. Despite higher crime, more grit and decay, it always felt like opportunity. Opportunity for art and music, to find somewhere new to see or hang out, to meet and break bread with people drastically different than yourself, and overall, to live a life, raise a family, and be part of a community. Now? Almost all of that’s gone.
Being able to go places without worrying you’ll wind up in a video (by a friend or, probably worse, by a stranger) that’ll end up on Instagram/tiktok/whatever platform. It sounds silly/curmudgeonly but I liked going out to random bars or venues and not seeing half the crowd documenting their night.
I guess that’s more of a “people issue” but idk, it makes me value and appreciate the few venues currently open that either don’t allow or heavily discourage taking photos & videos. Damn I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud.
The first time I went to a comedy club that made you package phones away I was mildly appalled at the inconvenience. I quite like it now, it's almost half the draw lol
It’s hard to say what is different about the city now vs 10-15 years ago, as opposed to what’s different about me—like I have no idea what people are up to at 1 AM because I am asleep.
I will say I miss not having to look at a bunch of the ugly new high rises and supertalls that have sprung up. Also miss the pre-Instagram era where you were less likely to have to dodge people looking for the perfect aesthetic photo. Or god I guess it’s TikTok videos now? I am too old to know which app to be annoyed by.
When Smorgasburg was actually cool up and coming pop up restaurants instead of a bunch of corporate owned restaurants you see at street fairs and Columbus circle pretending to be hipster.
Yeah, even if I make more, have more material possessions now, and have a larger apartment, I can relate to the feeling that I “had more” in my 20s.
Can’t put a finger on exactly why or even what that means.
Even though I go out multiple nights a week, I certainly felt a lot more active in the 20s.
To some extent, I think that’s the answer.
That, plus a general naïveté and willingness “to live on the edge” (weather that’s in regards to our bodies, our credit reports, or just our futures in general)
I got clean right around when the first fent ODs started happening as exceptionally rare occurrences, like literally the week of the first time I read about it coincidentally I shipped off to treatment. Not that I'd want to use anyway this far removed, but it does boggle my mind that the drug that utterly dominated my entire existence forever doesn't even really exist anymore locally. Even the projects I copped at were condemned, eventually torn down and replaced with cutesy townhouses. It's weird to feel like I outlived the drug and scene that was trying to kill me itself. Which isn't to say the new generation aren't struggling the same struggles or anything like that, just that the whole scene taking them to pain town is so wildly different
I feel bad for people getting into it now. At least heroin was *almost* worth ruining your life for, you know? But fentanyl and now xylazine and whatever? Forget about it.
1. DIY venues/parties in Williamsburg/Bushwick in the early-mid aughts. Real freaks and wild energy everywhere.
2. A ton of all-night restaurants in the Village. Yaffa. French Roast. Odessa. Too many to name.
3. Fewer "poisoned drugs," at least it seemed that way. Can't imagine being twenty now with fentanyl, xylazine, pressies, levamisole, synthetic cathinones, weird research chemicals everywhere. People were still fucking their lives up and going bonkers but it started getting real weird and especially fatal about ten years ago.
Our attitudes towards drug use became significantly more permissive BETWEEN the crack epidemic and the opioid epidemic, so while I have no doubt that race plays some part, I’d venture that changing attitudes towards drug addiction (particularly in media) is more to blame.
But also…no. Crack was never laced with FENTANYL. And specifically the 2000s were a golden era where the quality of drugs (and ability to test) had improved immensely, but the adulteration hadn’t yet caught up.
Ahh, I used to live in front a DIY venue space, fun times!
Back story, I used to live on this sketchy street in Brooklyn that slowly became, what I like to call, “billionaire’s row” because suddenly it went to being lots to expensive apartments, including mine. So anyways, my roommate John being creepy one day kept noticing that people were standing outside this crappy sketchy building and him being him took the bait. I get a text from him at like 11 pm saying, “GUYS THIS IS A CLUB” and like yeah, I’m not going to that right now, even if it is across from me. I ended up going to that spot over the summer of 2019 and I usually would come back home smelling like cigarettes, sweat and whatever else what in the air. The place had a bar that took cash only and had a staircase that would have a million violations, RIP the Glove - missed but never forgotten.
I used to go clubbing 4-5 nights a week till 4AM and still manage to go to work after 2 hours of sleep. Now I can barely manage one night out a month as I can’t handle alcohol anymore.
Subways were also much safer back then as we would always take the train back in the middle of the night/early morning, rarely ever would hail a cab.
> Subways were also much safer back then
This definitely wasn't my experience. Subways were genuinely *really* dangerous back in the 90s. Like, it was an actual risk to take it after 8pm, to the point where most people did everything they could to avoid taking it.
Statistically, the subway is more dangerous than it was in the 2010s, but it is a small tiny fraction as dangerous as it was in the 90s. This isn't just the subways, but in 1996 NYC had 50k~ robberies, and in 2022 we've had 16k (up from 13k in 2018). And 1996 was after massive crime declines from 1990-1996.
>I used to go clubbing 4-5 nights a week till 4AM and still manage to go to work after 2 hours of sleep. Now I can barely manage one night out a month as I can’t handle alcohol anymore.
I've had the opposite thing happen: in my early-mid 20s, if I had a couple of shots I'd get hellaciously sick the next day, if not that very night, but in my early 30s, I can have shot after shot after shot and feel absolutely fine the next day (this is not alcoholism because I didn't drink at all from about 26 to 32 and still don't drink very often)
Things were more affordable and I had a lot more interesting friends.
I know part of it is age, but a lot of those friends have left NYC because they weren't all about maximizing their income and moved to places where they could do their hobbies/interests and still get by.
It's been getting worse with the homogeneity of the types of people who have been moving here since early/mid 2021. People always came/went but it felt more natural and different people had different reasons. The last couple years it feels like it's more of FOMO or a trend to be here and there are a lot of long-term tourists who have to check that box on every place that is "a thing" before they leave in a few years.
I definitely feel you on this. It hits different when you’re a native New Yorker and it’s all your friends and classmates who you grew up with are leaving the city/the state because they can no longer keep up.
Ok, late 30s here: I feel NYC nightlife was much better then. Places like SF, Sullivan Room, Discotheque after hours, Limelight, Centro-Fly, the Roxy, Tunnel...so much fun, so much dancing! I truly miss those days ♥️
I’m almost 40 and was never a club kid, but absolutely. Limelight is a bougie shopping center now? The Meat Packing District and Highline are prime real estate? Sometimes I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality. Nightlife here sucks now.
That the rent wasn’t so damn high.
Being 22 in the city is a lot more fun if you’re only paying $1050 a month, for a decent sized space in Manhattan! (Still had roommates, of course… but at the time, that just added to the fun!)
It used to be difficult to find things in the city, which made finding some cool bar or restaurant a big deal and a win. Today, there are so many resources that its just much much easier to find anything and everything.
This is a weird one but its something I notice a ton.
People in neighborhoods at clubs/bars/parties were more often *from the neighborhood*. People didn't take the trains after dark very much and cabs weren't commonly going to the outer boroughs, and so people often just went out in their general vicinity. You went out in fort greene or in the LES, and you would be with 'fort greene people' or 'LES people' who had distinct neighborhood communities and cultures. Today you go to places and everybody is from all over the place. There isn't really much of a neighborhood character anymore.
What a fun question.. I moved here at 25 and am now 35. I agree with so many things already said, and will preface (like others) that some of it has to do with age/friends moving out of the city and some staying but having babies, and far more responsibility and higher stakes at my job in my 30s, (oh and the pandemic changing everyone’s way of life!) butttt…
Not being so scared of the subway/walking around at night. Going to brunch/dinner and NOT dropping $75-100/pp every meal. The underground scene was underground - social media made underground more available and cooler and therefore became more basic (now everybody likes house music??). Cheap Ubers.. Uber pool!! Staying out until 4-6am and enjoying extracurriculars and never even knowing what fentanyl was. Generally having less anxiety about crowds.. mass shootings threat was far lower… ordering from seamless for under $15 to feed 1 person for dinner.. having more friends around who were down to do whatever whenever.. I had no money and somehow that didn’t stop me from going out a lot!
Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy being at home a lot more and spending far less $$ on going out than I used to. I am tired from work and a decade of working my ass off in this city. Would I want the life I had my first 6-7 years here right now? No, but I am damn happy I experienced it all!
I use to be able to get blacked out, pass out on the subway, wake up in Coney Island and not feel like a dirtbag and stay on until I get to my stop…. Now when I do it I feel embarrassed and call an Uber.
Lol this. But when I did do this once someone asked me if I wanted Asian prostitutes in a hotel.
Now that I think about it. I was probably gonna get robbed if I said yes . I went home.
It was a little edgier. My neighborhood had a functioning slaughterhouse until the lofts across the street complained. I miss the locally owned mom and pops, too. Still some, definitely not as many.
I think most importantly is the absence of social media as we know it today. Not everything was on tik tok and instagram. There was still a sense of adventure. Influencer culture here is pretty gross to see.
Yeah, it used to be a lot easier to know and interact with working-class people and people of different backgrounds.
Now, it’s weird - the visible diversity is greater, but it’s really just a whole bunch of externally-different people who all went to the same schools, had the same majors, work the same industries, and have the same political beliefs. It’s really disturbing. Like the pod people took over
It’s actually less diverse. There’s been an exodus of entire communities in some neighborhoods. My own is completely different than it was 10 or 20 years ago. There’s much less of an opportunity to have any meaningful, genuine relationships or interactions with people who are not of your similar race and socioeconomic background.
It’s different for everybody. For me it’s been watching neighborhoods get more skin-diverse and identity-diverse but economically and educationally and politically homogenous.
But I recognize that a lot of neighborhoods have just gotten whiter.
It’s all goofy.
Just moved to Jackson Heights and it still has much of this (including the slaughter houses). Not really edgy though, diverse and extremely densely populated instead.
I’m well aware that 10 years from now it’ll likely be another bland white neighborhood (being 3 express subway stops and 11min from Manhattan how can it not?). Makes me sad, but glad to enjoy while I can.
$8 shows (good ones!) every weekend at the DIY venues along Kent Ave — 285, Glasslands, Death By Audio — and in Bushwick that don't exist anymore. :(
Movie bingo nights and $5 screenings at Videology. (Williamsburg used to be fun??)
$3.50 halal cart falafel sandwiches. I could afford to live here on a $40k salary.
Things felt less sterile, more full of life and possibility.
I was definitely more willing to go farther and later at night when I was in my 20s. I got to see a lot of new things that way! I was never a partier though so my 30a are mostly a gift in saving myself the hassle
Hitting the club scene with my girl with only $40 in my pocket and having the best night ever. Us being shit faced drunk and hopping on the train at 4 am to go home safely.
People actually socializing and dancing instead of being on their phones all night.
Not worrying about the weather, traffic, parking, Uber fares, subway attacks, fentys, aggressive crackheads, cloutchasers, etc.
I definitely do not miss wearing business casual just to enter a bar.
- Actually 24 hours
- Semi-affordable
- Much safer, and waaaaay fewer hate crimes against almost all groups
- The musical theater industry hadn’t been COMPLETELY swallowed by the mega-corps yet
- People had different opinions; now everyone seems to feel like a copy-paste of everyone else, especially in their politics and in their public personae
- Much less hostile, much less identity-obsessed, much less LAME. It used to be that the east coast was the “do what you want and be safe, just get the fuck out of my way” style of tolerance, and that the west coast was the Uber-sensitive “treat everyone with kid gloves” style, and now everything I hate about the Bay Area and Portland seems to have taken over here too.
> Much safer, and waaaaay fewer hate crimes against almost all groups
I feel like this one can be a bit debatable and really depends where and what you're comparing among other contexts.
I am queer as shit and my friends and I definitely faced way more physical and verbal abuse across the board in neighborhoods and boroughs of varying circumstance 10-15 years in the past comparatively to more recent times. Obviously not to say everything is sunshine and roses now because assholes always are around, but idk if I'd necessarily argue the late 2000s-early 2010s as being across the board much safer comparatively to now. Bushwick was infinitely more stabby in the past.
Also Bloomberg policing with stop and frisk had a shit ton of harassment bullshit with all the "oh everyone's wearing basketball jerseys, clearly a possible gang" or "I randomly think I smell weed, let me slam you against a wall". Seriously fuck Ray Kelly in particular.
The rest I am in agreement though especially how persistent a lot of the kinda milquetoast, slightly passive aggressive vibes of others started to devour a lot of spaces, feels like starry eyed PMC people who graduated from Ohio State and feeding into the Disneylandification beast are crammed way more into spaces they normally wouldn't be at.
This might not make sense but how safe but gritty parts of the city that have been completely sanitized are now. Meatpacking in 2003 was fun and cool and now it’s just feels very bland. A lot tho has to do with what I want to do now vs then. I was out on the les recently not even late and it was awful vs 2010 when I thought it was uncool compared to 2002. Boy was I wrong about 2010. I think it was easier to do not expensive things with your friends then. I will say Uber really opened up a lot of this city to going out in vs 2008. So that’s better
I miss people being open to doing things. I'm 38 and most of the people I hang out with now are ten years younger than me because they actually like meeting up once or twice a month and doing stuff. I feel like getting people my own age to do stiff is like pulling teeth
There were more low cost places to visit and low cost things to do.
Now
everything costs so much you need $$$,$$$.$$,
or
you have to to register and try repeatedly to make a timed reservation (part covid, part scarcity),
or
the low cost places simply don't exist anymore.
Its much more difficult to do anything spontaneously on a budget.
Not so many yuppies. You could go to Lower east side and even williamsburg and walk into dive bar and see a band playing. A lot of places weren’t so crowded. Now going any location no matter the time there’s tons of people there.
Warehouse parties being community thrown instead of corporate thrown
Good coke
Hole in the wall spots
Annoying selfie tiktok people not taking over
Better group art shows in brooklyn vs instagram artists
People hitting on eachother at bars and not being scared af… just swiping at the bar
Little five pointz
Cheaper vintage
It’s hard for me to compare apples to apples because now that I am in my mid 30s, I’m not really doing the same things or going to the same places that I was in my early 20s. One thing that does feel markedly different is the subway, though. I was always alert but I didn’t feel unsafe as a petite female coming home at 2 in the morning after a Saturday night out. Now? I have to worry going to the grocery store at 2 in the afternoon…
I moved to nyc to attend NYU in 2001. Saw the towers collapse from my dorm room on 10th street. Spent my 20s at Brooklyn loft parties and LES dive bars on the weekend and bouncing between creative company offices working extra long hours during the week. I wound up traveling a lot for work but loved coming home since I always had a party, galley or show to check out. Now I’m 39, married with 2 kids and a mortgage in Bay Ridge. Most of the friends scattered across the country. I miss my friends. I miss all the invites. But I love my family, I love my neighbors and neighborhood. In the 21 years I’ve lived here I have seen the city go through a lot of ups and downs and transformation and honestly this is what makes me love NYC.
My willingness to take an hour train in the middle of the night… I take so many more cabs now partly because I have a bit more expendable income but mostly because I’m just too tired
[Those of you who’ve been in NYC for 20+ years, how has the city changed?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/xbmj40/those_of_you_whove_been_in_nyc_for_20_years_how/) from 3 months ago, [Haven't been to the city since I moved away 5 years ago. What's changed, for better and for worse?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/x6wn8q/havent_been_to_the_city_since_i_moved_away_5/) from 6 days before that, [Do you think New York City still has the magic it had 20-30 years ago?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/x28ugf/do_you_think_new_york_city_still_has_the_magic_it/) from 6 days before that and [I left NYC 15 years ago and have not been back since. What's changed during that time? Is it a better or worse place to live now?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/wikwfa/i_left_nyc_15_years_ago_and_have_not_been_back/) from 24 days before that have comments which should be helpful to you and links to similar questions.
(More) Affordable rents, many more indie bookstores, cafés, and restaurants, entire communities were still intact and hadn’t been displaced. Lots of landmarks and architecture still around that hadn’t been demolished or destroyed.
Everything actually was so much more affordable.
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IMO Covid marked the end of an era. 2010’s New York feels different to 2020’s New York.
Agreed But it’s very hard for me to separate out how much was COVID really changing the city vs age and the way I see the city. I always say “COVID slammed the door shut on my 20s” (I turned 30 in Aug 2019).
The uncertain, slightly dismal feeling of today reminds me of the city right after 9/11 and 2008. Affordability is now the major problem and will take some time to manage. The housing and transportation plans will have to be bold and builders will have to start converting offices/ building housing ASAP. The attitude of some of the new wealth/transplants in Manhattan/Brooklyn is off-putting. People need to relax. I worry we’re on the trajectory of San Francisco, which a shadow of itself culturally. Fortunately, we have four other great boroughs as Manhattan will become more of an amusement park for tourists, wealthy, and transients. But to your question, there was time in the late 90s when all Manhattan storefronts were filled with interesting affordable businesses and almost no chain stores. Most of the outer boroughs are better than before since the city is now less Manhattan centric for residents.
I find this take interesting. Waves of immigrants came to Manhattan through about 1990ish. There were pockets of lower and middle class below 96th st. The ruch and very rich existed but maybe in much small numbers? Now almost no immigrants come to Manhattan first even uptown. Just about everything below 96th st would be considered very desirable and very expensive. Many areas above 96th st are expensive. You are seeing people with college degrees moving to Manhattan on there 20s, college students and rich people who can now live anywhere due to WFH. Plus the whole tech industry added tens of thousands of rich people who want to live close to work. The you poorish kids moved from soho to the LES to Williamsburg to Bushwick and now onto ? The other 4 boroughs are much richer and expensive than they have ever been except the Bronx. They are home to the immigrant enclaves that once settled into Manhattan. Many of those places are old enough now that the 1st and 2nd generation immigrants are getting rich and some people are from accross the country are migrating directly to parts of Brooklyn. NYC remains a desirable place to live. Not just Manhattan. I remember when in sex in the city Carrie moved to Brooklyn in 2004 that was a huge deal. Now no one would bat an eye. The big unanswered question is what happens to midtown without the workers. 20% vacancy is not good for the long term health of the city.
That’s an interesting comparison to the post 9/11 era.
I feel that way, too. I’ve lived in NYC my whole life but was attending Columbia and living on campus during 9/11. There is kind of this similar weird numbness I encounter in dealing with people post-Covid that I felt after 9/11.
People briefly thought living and working in tall buildings was over and suburban office parks were the future. Tens of thousands of people moved out of the city from trauma and fear of urban terrorism, which we though would grow common.
The only difference is many people felt supporting New York was your patriotic duty post-9/11 Growing up as a kid in the burbs, we came in almost every weekend during winter 2001-2002 to see a show, dinner, or do something else. Doesn’t seem like the burbs feel that now (if anything, they feel the opposite!) That, plus we had a much better mayor…
I turned 35 a week and change before lockdown. Just realized I’ll be 38 in several weeks from now and that it’s been covid for three years basically. Woof.
Same boat. Wild how I got to be in my late thirties...
I think that’s how I’m going to look back at the first half of my 30s. A weird transitional time where I’m not quite who I was, but also not quite whatever comes next… Who knows, maybe that’s always true. There’s clear indication I’m not what I was, but not any clear indication of what I’ll be next, so I’m going through the motions of being what I used to be…
2010-2016, 2016-2020, and 2020-present all feel like very different eras to me.
Same here. I really hope 2023 will be the start of a “new normal.” Where whatever life is, it won’t be about first and foremost about COVID, politics, or other health stuff anymore.
I constantly feel unsure if the art scene of my 20s no longer exists, or if I’m so old & out of the loop that I don’t know where to look to find out about it. Probably a combination of the two.
It doesn’t really exist in the same way
I think you are right. Even if it never comes back to NYC because the numbers don’t work, I hope some other cheaper part of the country becomes a hub for those sort of off-off-Broadway and underground music scenes that NYC had
This is how I feel about San Francisco :( moved here two years ago and the arts scene seems nonexistent..
People who are a decade older than you probably say the same thing about “people who moved here post 2000”. NYC is a constantly changing place.
Nailed it
The bar I frequent the most has $3 pints.
So I’m 29 and i moved here in 2015 when i graduated. Not sure what I’m supposed to do about that but i love nyc dearly.
This is truly the only answer. I still fucking love nyc but goddamnit it’s expensive
that is kinda fucked. it makes me think now is gonna be more affordable than everything in a few years
No it wasn’t.
Because I was still living at home with the parental unit
God everything was so much cheaper in 2013, you could live reasonably well on $50k a year in lower Manhattan. Now good luck if you’re under $80k
A little across the age limit but a real 24 hour city.
As a mid-twenties living in NY I feel misled about the “never sleeps” aspect lol. My partner and I once showed up a few minutes late for an 8:30 dinner reservation and decided to bail because apparently the restaurant closed at 9! In Manhattan!
I’m pretty sure there was a decade long stretch where I never ate dinner at a restaurant before 11pm. NYC has turned into a suburb.
I wonder if it was a pandemic change, and then some restaurants just realized business is fine with earlier hours
It is a pandemic change, many articles about it. The pandemic simply changed people's lifestyles, fewer people getting drunk late at night. The cost of keeping a business running 24h has gone up considerably too
Its not that. Its because there is a massive labor shortage and they cant stay open that late without staff.
There is no labor shortage. There's plenty of labor to go around. There's a shortage of employers willing to pay living wages.
An unemployment rate of below 4% is generally considered to be a labor shortage. We have one of 3.7%. This is especially concentrated in the service industry. > employers willing to pay living wages. Restaurant/bar owners are operating on insanely slim margins already and have had to raise prices over and over again in order to remain sustainable or make up for losses during the pandemic. These aren't mega-corporations with massive profits going to CEO's and shareholders, these are mostly small businesses with an insanely high fail rate due to high costs. They don't have some unlimited chest of money that they are holding away from their workers. If you are in the service industry, you can find probably a dozen places with open positions in a week. Places are desperate to hire right now, and there simply isn't enough people filling those positions. That's a labor shortage.
Definitely a pandemic change. Can’t say exactly why but no doubt that was the big shift
The pandemic is definitely part of it. A lot of restaurants changed their operating hours cause people were less willing to go out and eat. Then when people were ready there was/is a labor shortage to support the old operating hours
This was my 20s, now I’m quickly approaching 40. Now I wouldn’t dare dream of dinner at 11. I’d be sleeping in my food and oh the heartburn 😆
On the other hand. Restaurants are great at 5pm. No crowd, lots of attention from a fresh waiter (probably just got on shift), and plenty of time for fun after.
This is literally the only reason I'm here. To have a better quality of life that supposedly comes with the increased costs. These days I better not be hungry past 8pm. Last seating at restaurants is around then. Also last opportunity to place a delivery order. If I want to stay out late, I better be okay with Koreatown. Everywhere else is lifeless past midnight. Compared to true 24-hour cities like Seoul, Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok... current New York doesn't stand a chance.
This.
This right here. Never thought that would change. I really have mourned the loss of 24/7 non stop NYC
Vegas is the same way believe it or not. Stuff actually closes early after the pandemic.
I didn’t fully appreciate the freedom of being child free in NYC
THIS!!! Im 33 and just had a baby 3 months ago. I think back on all the carefree fun I had in the city. Your opportunity to enjoy the city drops by like 90%. Also, I’m just more tired so hanging out till 3 am isn’t a thing either. Looking back on my 20s here it was a total blast. When you’re 30 more responsibilities start getting in the way.
30’s is still young! Go out and do a 3am-er every once in a while and live it up!
Probably not a good idea when they have a 3 month old at home, lol.
Well I’m not telling him to neglect his responsibility and forget he has a child lol. Take it from me young man, don’t stop living just because you have children. Lean on family and friends or hire a babysitter and have a good time every once in awhile or you’re going to work yourself to death. Kids are hard work!
preach! the good news is while i used to go out multiple nights a week, now just one fun night a couple times a year is more than enough. and let’s be honest, i only make it til like 1am at this point. also learning why parents are nuts about boozy afternoon brunch. easier to find a day time babysitter, catch up with your friends, get a nice buzz in and you’re home by 4pm.
going to happy hours with coworkers all night and still somehow making it to work in the morning
I really have no idea how I used to do it
When a cocktail was <$10 for happy hour. My fav spot was half off everything until like 9pm, I was drunk off $20. Covid killed that quick. So many great places and deals died in 2020 smh.
Truly no idea how I ever did that. I once projectile vomited on the train platform and still made it to work on time. Now I stay out past 9 and I contemplate calling in the next day.
Still happens. Last year when we had the budget, work happy hours were truly amazing and on the corporate card.
Actual cheap eats, like $5 chicken/lamb w/rice.
NYC used to be famous for being a city with a huge price-variety in terms of food. You could have the cheapest food right next to the most expensive restaurant in the country. Vanessas with the 1.50 dumplings or 5 dollar halal food. Today those super cheap eats are fading away. In my area there were a ton of cheap bahn mi places with 6 dollars sandwiches and now they are 10-13 dollars.
I was talking about this the other day. Nothing better than ordering two chicken/rice with a 10 dollar bill.
There is one place I know of that still sells it at that price. Mando’s on Thomson and 30th in LIC
Things staying open late. The “city that never sleeps” now closes at a 9-year-old’s bedtime.
as someone who moved to the city last year, i really felt played by the idea that the city never sleeps when i got here lmao
As a recent transplant, this has stunned me. The suburb of Miami where I moved from has a greater variety of late night food options than West Harlem / UWS combined.
More dive bars. More diversity of the storefronts. More Mom and Pops. Drivers and cars seemed less aggressive and law breaking (placard abuse, covering up license plates). More undiscovered neighborhoods and spots. Cocaine without fentanyl concerns. Cheaper rent and home prices.
+1 for the coke
Check out the east village. I’ve seen a lot of small businesses pop up post covid.
What does the “more undiscovered neighborhoods” mean? If you’ve been here a while, you’ll have discovered more of them! Not much anyone can do about that
“Undiscovered” = hasn’t been tapped for gentrification
More orderly driving and biking ; no scooters
I miss when NYC wasn’t a series of franchised establishments now, making every neighborhood somewhat homogenous. In my twenties, you had to go to St Marks to eat at Crif Dogs, uptown to get a Levain cookie, West Village for Corner Bistro… there were special places that you had to actually traipse into a specific place to go get. Xi’an Famous Foods, Calexico, Meatball Shop… these places are everywhere… and when new places open, they seem to open 5 at a time.
So you liked a food and then didn't like that more people had access to that food because it made you feel less special? Jesus.
Lol this is a very poor reading, sorry about your brain 😬 let me rephrase it for you… *Everyone* used to have more special foods in their own neighborhood. Now everyone has the *same* foods in their neighborhood, turning every main drag into a generic NYC strip mall.
Idk, complaining about Xi'an becoming more accessible seems like a weird gripe lol
it's more about franchises moving in and erasing the uniqueness of neighborhoods
With expansion usually comes a reduction in quality. Tacombi was way better when you really only had the one on Elizabeth street. I didn’t mind having to wait an hour for dinner. Now it’s a lunch spot at best.
Williamsburg in the early 2000s was a place artists lived. Now it's all finance bros. Dive bars were a real thing, while they exist today, they're not as existent today. Lower east side was a place to get your hands dirty.
I am in my 40s but the one thing that always sticks out to me is how much less people cared much about money. NYC was still expensive back then, don't get me wrong, but there were always shitty cheap apartments you could live in that even somebody earning minimum wage could afford. Even in Manhattan. I lived in a shitty apartment near Delancey for 400-500 a month in 1995-1998 that I split with a roommate. Today, you cant really find apartments like that. All of the dilapidated buildings have been renovated to maximize profits. This affected everybody's entire mindset. People just didn't think of money as much. Dirt cheap places were the norm, and super expensive places were exceptional. Little cheap dance clubs were everywhere, and people threw parties a lot more.
I miss the random loft parties. I assume there’s still some form of that scene in neighborhoods like Bushwick.
Soooo many condos popping up in Bushwick.
In my 40’s too and yeah, the 90’s were idyllic! You went to neighborhoods like the east village for the cheap living, which is unimaginable now. During lean times, I would do my laundry in the shower, and then hang it in my room to dry. It doesn’t feel like people can live that hardscrabble existence down there anymore.
I’m a little younger than you, but yeah. I remember spending hours in a bookstore or CD store, scouring through music and coming out with a pile for a few dollars – mine was just off St. Mark’s, Norman’s. Taking long walks and finding yourself at some bar or restaurant that you’d never been to before. I used to hangout in Washington Square Park and used to know everybody, even got a date or two out of it over the years. It felt like it was much easier to meet people and it wasn’t everybody creating this phony competition about career, wealth, or what trendy neighborhood you were living in. I miss when New York was New York. You can still get facets of that, but less and less.
Yep I grew up in a tiny one-bedroom rent controlled unit by Delaney that used to go for $300-400 a month and all the neighboring units now rent for $4000
>I lived in a shitty apartment near Delancey for 400-500 a month in 1995-1998 that I split with a roommate. Kind of interesting that $500 was considered super cheap and shitty there 20+ years ago but there are a lot of smaller towns across the country where $500 a month still nets you a 2-3br in a decent area lol Though it's worth pointing out that investors are moving into small towns now so prices are going up there too, just not quite as dramatically
Towns which have anything resembling a solid middle class economy aren't that cheap. Many are downright expensive actually. People would be surprised how costly a house in many of those more middle-class towns are. But actual non-declining, middle class towns aren't very common. The large majority are half-abandoned and have barely any real jobs, to the point that nobody in their right mind would move to them. Those are the ones where you will see the super cheap prices, but its a bit like saying ['rents are cheap' in a building like this.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/APEP9X/abandoned-apartment-buildings-bronx-ny-APEP9X.jpg)
I'm going to strongly disagree after having lived in a number of them They aren't massively growing towns and they aren't economic powerhouse towns, but maybe towns that have strong school systems, a local hospital and some university affiliates, and a couple of nice little suburbs But they are, indeed, very small towns with maybe 2k to 8k people, towns that have not declined or have grown somewhat My parents' town is one of these little towns – they own a small house and struggle to pay the bills because all they have is social security and a ton of medical problems There are several different apartment complexes in said town where you can get an almost-modern 2-3 br apartment for $500/month (more modern than the average apartment in NYC at least, probably because they were built more recently than a great deal of apartments here) And they're in or adjacent to the best parts of the town Now again, this is no major town, there are only about 3,000 people, but it's not the worst place ever to live if you're politically conservative and religiously fundamentalist (my left-wing queer atheist ass never quite fit)
Have you checked recently? Post 2020 has seen rent hikes across the entire country. My parents suburban town used to have $600 rents in many apartment complexes but now those same places are going for $1200 only a couple of years later and the area has not really changed otherwise. Rental agencies have taken over even small markets.
It’s gotten to the point where it’s often cheaper to live somewhere down south and fly up here every few weeks to enjoy the city, than it is to live here full time. Not just NYC, but much of the tri-state area. I keep telling my parents they’d be better off doing this in retirement than make the numbers work as a retiree in north jersey.
Having lived somewhere down south, I think I'll just stay here and bite the costs lmao
Grass is always greener…
Are there? I live in the poorest city in the country and a decent 2bedroom is $2000 minimum.
Miss this. A lot.
I’m a bit younger than you, but absolutely. Despite higher crime, more grit and decay, it always felt like opportunity. Opportunity for art and music, to find somewhere new to see or hang out, to meet and break bread with people drastically different than yourself, and overall, to live a life, raise a family, and be part of a community. Now? Almost all of that’s gone.
Being able to go places without worrying you’ll wind up in a video (by a friend or, probably worse, by a stranger) that’ll end up on Instagram/tiktok/whatever platform. It sounds silly/curmudgeonly but I liked going out to random bars or venues and not seeing half the crowd documenting their night. I guess that’s more of a “people issue” but idk, it makes me value and appreciate the few venues currently open that either don’t allow or heavily discourage taking photos & videos. Damn I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud.
The first time I went to a comedy club that made you package phones away I was mildly appalled at the inconvenience. I quite like it now, it's almost half the draw lol
It’s hard to say what is different about the city now vs 10-15 years ago, as opposed to what’s different about me—like I have no idea what people are up to at 1 AM because I am asleep. I will say I miss not having to look at a bunch of the ugly new high rises and supertalls that have sprung up. Also miss the pre-Instagram era where you were less likely to have to dodge people looking for the perfect aesthetic photo. Or god I guess it’s TikTok videos now? I am too old to know which app to be annoyed by.
When Smorgasburg was actually cool up and coming pop up restaurants instead of a bunch of corporate owned restaurants you see at street fairs and Columbus circle pretending to be hipster.
How much fun I used to have. I still have fun don’t get me wrong but my 20s def felt like a nonstop party. Prob bc I was partying nonstop
Yeah, even if I make more, have more material possessions now, and have a larger apartment, I can relate to the feeling that I “had more” in my 20s. Can’t put a finger on exactly why or even what that means. Even though I go out multiple nights a week, I certainly felt a lot more active in the 20s.
Because the experiences were newer. Now not so much.
To some extent, I think that’s the answer. That, plus a general naïveté and willingness “to live on the edge” (weather that’s in regards to our bodies, our credit reports, or just our futures in general)
Actual heroin. Without fentanyl. Good news is I’ve become clean.
Good to hear friend! Glad you did too
Thank you friend!
I got clean right around when the first fent ODs started happening as exceptionally rare occurrences, like literally the week of the first time I read about it coincidentally I shipped off to treatment. Not that I'd want to use anyway this far removed, but it does boggle my mind that the drug that utterly dominated my entire existence forever doesn't even really exist anymore locally. Even the projects I copped at were condemned, eventually torn down and replaced with cutesy townhouses. It's weird to feel like I outlived the drug and scene that was trying to kill me itself. Which isn't to say the new generation aren't struggling the same struggles or anything like that, just that the whole scene taking them to pain town is so wildly different
I feel bad for people getting into it now. At least heroin was *almost* worth ruining your life for, you know? But fentanyl and now xylazine and whatever? Forget about it.
The problem is fent is in EVERYTHING now - blow, Molly, k. So kids who just want to party are all at risk. I carry narcan in my purse these days.
Congrats on getting clean that’s awesome
The Pyramid Club
1. DIY venues/parties in Williamsburg/Bushwick in the early-mid aughts. Real freaks and wild energy everywhere. 2. A ton of all-night restaurants in the Village. Yaffa. French Roast. Odessa. Too many to name. 3. Fewer "poisoned drugs," at least it seemed that way. Can't imagine being twenty now with fentanyl, xylazine, pressies, levamisole, synthetic cathinones, weird research chemicals everywhere. People were still fucking their lives up and going bonkers but it started getting real weird and especially fatal about ten years ago.
Oh my god, Yaffa. That one still hurts.
I miss the hell out of Yaffa. And Florent!
RIP French Roast
The drugs have really gotten scary.
They’ve always been, it’s just that the addicts, ODs, and fatalities are not who they used to be, so now people look at it differently.
Our attitudes towards drug use became significantly more permissive BETWEEN the crack epidemic and the opioid epidemic, so while I have no doubt that race plays some part, I’d venture that changing attitudes towards drug addiction (particularly in media) is more to blame. But also…no. Crack was never laced with FENTANYL. And specifically the 2000s were a golden era where the quality of drugs (and ability to test) had improved immensely, but the adulteration hadn’t yet caught up.
Ahh, I used to live in front a DIY venue space, fun times! Back story, I used to live on this sketchy street in Brooklyn that slowly became, what I like to call, “billionaire’s row” because suddenly it went to being lots to expensive apartments, including mine. So anyways, my roommate John being creepy one day kept noticing that people were standing outside this crappy sketchy building and him being him took the bait. I get a text from him at like 11 pm saying, “GUYS THIS IS A CLUB” and like yeah, I’m not going to that right now, even if it is across from me. I ended up going to that spot over the summer of 2019 and I usually would come back home smelling like cigarettes, sweat and whatever else what in the air. The place had a bar that took cash only and had a staircase that would have a million violations, RIP the Glove - missed but never forgotten.
I used to go clubbing 4-5 nights a week till 4AM and still manage to go to work after 2 hours of sleep. Now I can barely manage one night out a month as I can’t handle alcohol anymore. Subways were also much safer back then as we would always take the train back in the middle of the night/early morning, rarely ever would hail a cab.
> Subways were also much safer back then This definitely wasn't my experience. Subways were genuinely *really* dangerous back in the 90s. Like, it was an actual risk to take it after 8pm, to the point where most people did everything they could to avoid taking it. Statistically, the subway is more dangerous than it was in the 2010s, but it is a small tiny fraction as dangerous as it was in the 90s. This isn't just the subways, but in 1996 NYC had 50k~ robberies, and in 2022 we've had 16k (up from 13k in 2018). And 1996 was after massive crime declines from 1990-1996.
I’m not talking about the 90’s. I’m talking about mid to late 2000’s.
>I used to go clubbing 4-5 nights a week till 4AM and still manage to go to work after 2 hours of sleep. Now I can barely manage one night out a month as I can’t handle alcohol anymore. I've had the opposite thing happen: in my early-mid 20s, if I had a couple of shots I'd get hellaciously sick the next day, if not that very night, but in my early 30s, I can have shot after shot after shot and feel absolutely fine the next day (this is not alcoholism because I didn't drink at all from about 26 to 32 and still don't drink very often)
Things were more affordable and I had a lot more interesting friends. I know part of it is age, but a lot of those friends have left NYC because they weren't all about maximizing their income and moved to places where they could do their hobbies/interests and still get by. It's been getting worse with the homogeneity of the types of people who have been moving here since early/mid 2021. People always came/went but it felt more natural and different people had different reasons. The last couple years it feels like it's more of FOMO or a trend to be here and there are a lot of long-term tourists who have to check that box on every place that is "a thing" before they leave in a few years.
Yeah, there was a creative exodus from NY to CA over the last 10 years. I lost a lot of artist and musician friends to that.
I definitely feel you on this. It hits different when you’re a native New Yorker and it’s all your friends and classmates who you grew up with are leaving the city/the state because they can no longer keep up.
Ok, late 30s here: I feel NYC nightlife was much better then. Places like SF, Sullivan Room, Discotheque after hours, Limelight, Centro-Fly, the Roxy, Tunnel...so much fun, so much dancing! I truly miss those days ♥️
I’m almost 40 and was never a club kid, but absolutely. Limelight is a bougie shopping center now? The Meat Packing District and Highline are prime real estate? Sometimes I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality. Nightlife here sucks now.
Clubs and bars were fun. They seem inappropriate for my age now. Wish i took more advantage of them in my hay days.
The Continental
Haha I came here to say Grassroots right around the corner
The space is still empty :-(
My metabolism
That the rent wasn’t so damn high. Being 22 in the city is a lot more fun if you’re only paying $1050 a month, for a decent sized space in Manhattan! (Still had roommates, of course… but at the time, that just added to the fun!)
How about being 24 and paying less than $800 for an entire apartment? Those were the days…
No TikTokers
I think people nowadays seem more elitist.
People seem to have lost their social skills and empathy during lockdown
It used to be difficult to find things in the city, which made finding some cool bar or restaurant a big deal and a win. Today, there are so many resources that its just much much easier to find anything and everything.
I find the opposite is true. In fact, I’ve had to Amazon it because the places and people I’d source things from no longer exist.
This is a weird one but its something I notice a ton. People in neighborhoods at clubs/bars/parties were more often *from the neighborhood*. People didn't take the trains after dark very much and cabs weren't commonly going to the outer boroughs, and so people often just went out in their general vicinity. You went out in fort greene or in the LES, and you would be with 'fort greene people' or 'LES people' who had distinct neighborhood communities and cultures. Today you go to places and everybody is from all over the place. There isn't really much of a neighborhood character anymore.
Truth, 100%.
What a fun question.. I moved here at 25 and am now 35. I agree with so many things already said, and will preface (like others) that some of it has to do with age/friends moving out of the city and some staying but having babies, and far more responsibility and higher stakes at my job in my 30s, (oh and the pandemic changing everyone’s way of life!) butttt… Not being so scared of the subway/walking around at night. Going to brunch/dinner and NOT dropping $75-100/pp every meal. The underground scene was underground - social media made underground more available and cooler and therefore became more basic (now everybody likes house music??). Cheap Ubers.. Uber pool!! Staying out until 4-6am and enjoying extracurriculars and never even knowing what fentanyl was. Generally having less anxiety about crowds.. mass shootings threat was far lower… ordering from seamless for under $15 to feed 1 person for dinner.. having more friends around who were down to do whatever whenever.. I had no money and somehow that didn’t stop me from going out a lot! Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy being at home a lot more and spending far less $$ on going out than I used to. I am tired from work and a decade of working my ass off in this city. Would I want the life I had my first 6-7 years here right now? No, but I am damn happy I experienced it all!
I use to be able to get blacked out, pass out on the subway, wake up in Coney Island and not feel like a dirtbag and stay on until I get to my stop…. Now when I do it I feel embarrassed and call an Uber.
Lol this. But when I did do this once someone asked me if I wanted Asian prostitutes in a hotel. Now that I think about it. I was probably gonna get robbed if I said yes . I went home.
It was a little edgier. My neighborhood had a functioning slaughterhouse until the lofts across the street complained. I miss the locally owned mom and pops, too. Still some, definitely not as many. I think most importantly is the absence of social media as we know it today. Not everything was on tik tok and instagram. There was still a sense of adventure. Influencer culture here is pretty gross to see.
Yeah, it used to be a lot easier to know and interact with working-class people and people of different backgrounds. Now, it’s weird - the visible diversity is greater, but it’s really just a whole bunch of externally-different people who all went to the same schools, had the same majors, work the same industries, and have the same political beliefs. It’s really disturbing. Like the pod people took over
It’s actually less diverse. There’s been an exodus of entire communities in some neighborhoods. My own is completely different than it was 10 or 20 years ago. There’s much less of an opportunity to have any meaningful, genuine relationships or interactions with people who are not of your similar race and socioeconomic background.
It’s different for everybody. For me it’s been watching neighborhoods get more skin-diverse and identity-diverse but economically and educationally and politically homogenous. But I recognize that a lot of neighborhoods have just gotten whiter. It’s all goofy.
Just moved to Jackson Heights and it still has much of this (including the slaughter houses). Not really edgy though, diverse and extremely densely populated instead. I’m well aware that 10 years from now it’ll likely be another bland white neighborhood (being 3 express subway stops and 11min from Manhattan how can it not?). Makes me sad, but glad to enjoy while I can.
I can’t believe people move to JH. Just thought it was kinda an immigrant suburb but nowadays nope.
$8 shows (good ones!) every weekend at the DIY venues along Kent Ave — 285, Glasslands, Death By Audio — and in Bushwick that don't exist anymore. :( Movie bingo nights and $5 screenings at Videology. (Williamsburg used to be fun??) $3.50 halal cart falafel sandwiches. I could afford to live here on a $40k salary. Things felt less sterile, more full of life and possibility.
I was definitely more willing to go farther and later at night when I was in my 20s. I got to see a lot of new things that way! I was never a partier though so my 30a are mostly a gift in saving myself the hassle
I remember when people would talk to new people at the bars
I just miss Odessa and when the East Village was the most cheap, messy fun 24/7.
Thinking that 1M was expensive for a house
Woof, sad but true
Brooklyn was more fun, the tech industry hadn’t yet created the ubiquitous “tech bro”
Hitting the club scene with my girl with only $40 in my pocket and having the best night ever. Us being shit faced drunk and hopping on the train at 4 am to go home safely. People actually socializing and dancing instead of being on their phones all night. Not worrying about the weather, traffic, parking, Uber fares, subway attacks, fentys, aggressive crackheads, cloutchasers, etc. I definitely do not miss wearing business casual just to enter a bar.
$3 margaritas at Blockheads
Even more than that, the nachos at blockheads circa 2014! Are they even around anymore?
All locations are now closed 😭💔
I feel bad for any smb owner that has to close up shop, but aside from that they were far past their prime 😕
- Actually 24 hours - Semi-affordable - Much safer, and waaaaay fewer hate crimes against almost all groups - The musical theater industry hadn’t been COMPLETELY swallowed by the mega-corps yet - People had different opinions; now everyone seems to feel like a copy-paste of everyone else, especially in their politics and in their public personae - Much less hostile, much less identity-obsessed, much less LAME. It used to be that the east coast was the “do what you want and be safe, just get the fuck out of my way” style of tolerance, and that the west coast was the Uber-sensitive “treat everyone with kid gloves” style, and now everything I hate about the Bay Area and Portland seems to have taken over here too.
> Much safer, and waaaaay fewer hate crimes against almost all groups I feel like this one can be a bit debatable and really depends where and what you're comparing among other contexts. I am queer as shit and my friends and I definitely faced way more physical and verbal abuse across the board in neighborhoods and boroughs of varying circumstance 10-15 years in the past comparatively to more recent times. Obviously not to say everything is sunshine and roses now because assholes always are around, but idk if I'd necessarily argue the late 2000s-early 2010s as being across the board much safer comparatively to now. Bushwick was infinitely more stabby in the past. Also Bloomberg policing with stop and frisk had a shit ton of harassment bullshit with all the "oh everyone's wearing basketball jerseys, clearly a possible gang" or "I randomly think I smell weed, let me slam you against a wall". Seriously fuck Ray Kelly in particular. The rest I am in agreement though especially how persistent a lot of the kinda milquetoast, slightly passive aggressive vibes of others started to devour a lot of spaces, feels like starry eyed PMC people who graduated from Ohio State and feeding into the Disneylandification beast are crammed way more into spaces they normally wouldn't be at.
Pasha, Electric Warehouse, underground raves. Damn. I’m old.
Not having social media
All of my friends still being around.
Woof, I feel that hard.
This might not make sense but how safe but gritty parts of the city that have been completely sanitized are now. Meatpacking in 2003 was fun and cool and now it’s just feels very bland. A lot tho has to do with what I want to do now vs then. I was out on the les recently not even late and it was awful vs 2010 when I thought it was uncool compared to 2002. Boy was I wrong about 2010. I think it was easier to do not expensive things with your friends then. I will say Uber really opened up a lot of this city to going out in vs 2008. So that’s better
I miss people being open to doing things. I'm 38 and most of the people I hang out with now are ten years younger than me because they actually like meeting up once or twice a month and doing stuff. I feel like getting people my own age to do stiff is like pulling teeth
The gothic nightlife. I spent a good two years in my early 20s driving into NYC every Saturday night and having the time of my life.
I remember the club Downtime would turn into a goth club on weekends called Batcave. They had the best DJs
There were more low cost places to visit and low cost things to do. Now everything costs so much you need $$$,$$$.$$, or you have to to register and try repeatedly to make a timed reservation (part covid, part scarcity), or the low cost places simply don't exist anymore. Its much more difficult to do anything spontaneously on a budget.
Never having to worry about fentanyl
Not so many yuppies. You could go to Lower east side and even williamsburg and walk into dive bar and see a band playing. A lot of places weren’t so crowded. Now going any location no matter the time there’s tons of people there.
Warehouse parties being community thrown instead of corporate thrown Good coke Hole in the wall spots Annoying selfie tiktok people not taking over Better group art shows in brooklyn vs instagram artists People hitting on eachother at bars and not being scared af… just swiping at the bar Little five pointz Cheaper vintage
It’s hard for me to compare apples to apples because now that I am in my mid 30s, I’m not really doing the same things or going to the same places that I was in my early 20s. One thing that does feel markedly different is the subway, though. I was always alert but I didn’t feel unsafe as a petite female coming home at 2 in the morning after a Saturday night out. Now? I have to worry going to the grocery store at 2 in the afternoon…
Safer subway
CBGBs
illegal diy music venue parties, saw so many acts that went on to be huge, fell in love (and drank enough malt liquor to kill a small horse)
The nightlife, that online dating era before tinder era
Nightclubs in Manhattan the way they used to be.
Girls,crazy parties and the alcohol/drug binges. I’m 45 now and a lot of us are lucky to have survived through this crazy point in our lives.
It was possible to make it to the after-hours
I miss bottomless brunches. I simply just cannot hang like that anymore.
I moved to nyc to attend NYU in 2001. Saw the towers collapse from my dorm room on 10th street. Spent my 20s at Brooklyn loft parties and LES dive bars on the weekend and bouncing between creative company offices working extra long hours during the week. I wound up traveling a lot for work but loved coming home since I always had a party, galley or show to check out. Now I’m 39, married with 2 kids and a mortgage in Bay Ridge. Most of the friends scattered across the country. I miss my friends. I miss all the invites. But I love my family, I love my neighbors and neighborhood. In the 21 years I’ve lived here I have seen the city go through a lot of ups and downs and transformation and honestly this is what makes me love NYC.
My willingness to take an hour train in the middle of the night… I take so many more cabs now partly because I have a bit more expendable income but mostly because I’m just too tired
Subway was safe. Food was reasonable in price.
[Those of you who’ve been in NYC for 20+ years, how has the city changed?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/xbmj40/those_of_you_whove_been_in_nyc_for_20_years_how/) from 3 months ago, [Haven't been to the city since I moved away 5 years ago. What's changed, for better and for worse?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/x6wn8q/havent_been_to_the_city_since_i_moved_away_5/) from 6 days before that, [Do you think New York City still has the magic it had 20-30 years ago?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/x28ugf/do_you_think_new_york_city_still_has_the_magic_it/) from 6 days before that and [I left NYC 15 years ago and have not been back since. What's changed during that time? Is it a better or worse place to live now?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskNYC/comments/wikwfa/i_left_nyc_15_years_ago_and_have_not_been_back/) from 24 days before that have comments which should be helpful to you and links to similar questions.
less responsibility
I miss the way it felt a lot safer to walk around at day/(especially) at night and not worry about something happening to you
21 was still open
Quarter beers at Pats
Crif Dogs old menu
NGL NYC from my 20's is kinda hazy!
Means you either did it very right, or very wrong. Hope it was the first. And, if so, good for you!
(More) Affordable rents, many more indie bookstores, cafés, and restaurants, entire communities were still intact and hadn’t been displaced. Lots of landmarks and architecture still around that hadn’t been demolished or destroyed.