20 Replies to “NYCCentric”

  1. New York city, isn’t that the place in all of those old black & white movies., like that one with the big Gorilla. For all of us left and center coasters, that place is just plain scary. You mean people really live there ?

  3. Anyhow, I guess Helen hasn’t run across anyone like me, who spent years in Wisconsin reading the Village Voice and New York Magazine and sometimes the New York Times, and dreaming. Maybe you’d have better luck in Madison.

    And sometimes dreams come true. 🙂

  4. Is this thread like talking about the famous cartoon that illustrates New Yorkers view of the country? It shows Manhattan as this huge island, almost adjacent to Los Angeles and San Francisco, with the rest of the country graphed as the size of a postage stamp? Where a cancellation of an important cocktail party on the Upper East Side is viewed as more important than, say, a small nuclear explosion over Omaha? (Do Manhattanites really need Omaha? Hmmm, where is that anyway?)

  5. Just teasing of course. I don’t believe there is a real bagel or pizza in the entire state of Washington. I could love New York just for the food.

  6. ‘Course to us native Californians (yes we do exist), everything east of the Colorado River is just an inconsequential blur that’ll fall into the sea when the Big One hits… 😉

  7. A friend just went to NY for two weeks, and she brought me back a hat, scarf, and necklace and earrings.

    But even with the nifty gifts, I’m siding with Marlena here and saying everything else isn’t really “there.” 😛

  8. Re ceecee’s opening comment, years ago I used to consider NY a little scary myself, seriously in my case. The thing that did it for me was, bizarrely enough, ‘The Amityville Horror’ – I used to believe all that crap about it being based on a true story, and therefore there was no way in the world I wanted to go anywhere near a city that had a real-life GATEWAY TO HELL in it! Of course, I later discovered that that story was all a crock of shit (and even if I hadn’t found that out, I no doubt would’ve come to the same conclusion after finally watching both versions of the aforementioned movie a couple of years ago; how anyone could have been conned into believing the events in them actually took place is beyond me…), so I suppose there’s nothing to stop me finally paying the place a visit! Seriously, though, I do intend checking it out when I next visit the States, whenever that happens. I took a holiday to your part of the world a few years back, but unfortunately never got any further east than Galveston.

  9. Amityville is somewhere out on Long Island. In fact, almost everything on Long Island is “somewhere out there.” I’ve been to New Jersey far more often.

    Anyhow, Long Island has NOTHING to do with NYC. Just ask someone who lives on Long Lisland.

  11. “I used to believe all that crap about it being based on a true story, and therefore there was no way in the world I wanted to go anywhere near a city that had a real-life GATEWAY TO HELL in it! Of course, I later discovered that that story was all a crock of shit (and even if I hadn’t found that out, I no doubt would’ve come to the same conclusion after finally watching both versions of the aforementioned movie a couple of years ago; how anyone could have been conned into believing the events in them actually took place is beyond me…)”

    Heh. There are apparently plenty of otherwise reasonable people these days willing to believe that blue mists and creaking doors are SIGNS FROM BEYOND.

    As for me, I may not believe in Long Island, but I’ve drunken its Ice Tea. That alone may make a believer out of me, given enough samples.

  12. I’m talking about Long Island in its popular definition, of course. Geographically, Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island. (Despite what some of my fellow-Manhattanites may say, Brooklyn and Queens are part of New York City.) But the popular notion is that Long Island starts at the Nassau County border. It was even portrayed that way on the original New York Islander jerseys.

  15. The heck with Amityville, Ghost Busters still has me scared of New York… rivers of slime, portals,…eGADS!

  16. Eating in NY is better than sex, a new dress or winning the lottery. And you’re all right. Unless you make them yourself, you can’t get a good bagel anywhere else. In fact, you can’t get good cream cheese either.

    That’s the worst thing about being on hormones – my appetite has decreased. What a rotten side effect.

  17. With regards to Ghostbusters, I found I actually liked a lot of the creepy places portrayed in that movie (and its sequel). The rivers of slime (they were in the second one, weren’t they?) reminded me of stories I’d heard about all manner of interesting things lying under NYC, while I really liked the old, Gothic-looking building that was the focal point for all the evil goings-on in the first film. Actually, when I think about it, I’ve long found there to be something very romantic about NYC between the late 19th Century (the time when I imagine that building would have been erected) and the first few decades of the 20th. Wasn’t the American Mob born there around that time?

    As for my assumption that Amityville was in NYC, my bad. I always used to think all of Long Island was part of New York, but now, after having looked the place up in an atlas, have seen how wrong I was. It really does live up to its name, doesn’t it?

  18. Maybe your confusion was due to the fact Long Island City is a part of Queens (which as I said before, is geographically on Long Island but politically a part of New York City). Basically what happened was that they built the Brooklyn Bridge, at which point various then-independent municipalities on the western end of Long Island became a part of New York City.

  19. Isn’t Long Island City where Swingline Stapler Company and Steinway Piano Company used to reside?

    Christine

  20. Sort of. Geographically I think it’s Astoria, which is part of the Long Island City post office district

    BTW, Steinway is still quite alive and kicking, building pianos right there in Queens.

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