Here's something that I just don't understand about how New York City has changed.

There is a tendancy to equate one's identity & one's self-worth as a human being based solely upon which neighborhood they choose to live in. I find this to be a particularly curious New York City phenomenon. I once read an article in the Daily News where a person was quoted as saying "What neigborhood one lives in tells an awful lot about who that person is". This I find completely and utterly absurd and almost exquisite in it's complete stupdity.

I tend to find this attitude among those who have recently moved to NYC from various points around the nation, particularly Artists and self-described "hipsters". Can someone please explain to me what difference does it make where one decides to plant their ass? As a life long resident of this fair city, I only noticed this attitude over the past few years.

It is kind of disturbing if you think about it....

I agree with you Julian, it's all a bit silly....
from a non-hipster living in williamsburg.

Oh, come on. Where you are from does say a lot about you. I'm from Boston, and i probably fit the stereotype of a bostonian, I love baseball, I am brash, I like to argue, and i'm a very proud person.

Most people you can tell what they are like depending on where they are from.

Can you pick out your average Upper East Sider on the weekend in Chinatown? You bet!

And Soho kids, well, they have a a stereotype too. As do E & W Villagers. There has always been stereotypes based on where you live. My grandma recalls in the 1920's and 1930's playing in Washington Square Park and beating up the rich kids from north of the Park! (Southside kids were Italian immigrants)

See? Nothing has changed....

Seriously, this just boggles the mind.

From the two responses this thread has gotten what I am being told is that you can tell EVERYTHING a person is based upon where the person lives. What you are saying then, where a person decides to get an apartment can tell you EVERYTHING about them? I know a photographer who is a very well known, respected and renowned artist from Lima. He recently moved to the United States and now lives in a remote area of Staten Island. Not the Village, or Williamsburg, or any of the so called "hip" areas. What does this say about him to those who adhere to this sort of logic? Can you tell me what he thinks? Can you tell me what kind of personality he has? Can you tell me ANYTHING at all about him? I think not.

Maybe we can agree just to disagree here but I personally feel that if someone is going to judge a person based upon where they choose to live....then I think maybe that person should expand their minds just a little bit.

Of course you can't tell everything about a person by where he lives, but there are certainly stereotypes about each area, which affects people's decisions to live there, dont' you agree?

When I told my friends I was planning on moving to West Harlem (I currently reside in the UES) they looked at me like I had five heads.

I am sure I will get that same look from many in the Harlem's population as well. Do I look like the average Harlemite? Prob not, but that doesn't bother me.

Obviously, you can't live by stereotypes, but if you assume stereotypes don't affect people's decisions to live in a certain area then you would be wrong, no?

I mean, walk down Soho, and its foofoo stores and European accents. Go to Lower East Side, its all funky and diverse. So of course these areas attract certain crowds. Isn't it obvious?

Outward appearances and certain personality types, yes....but that isn't what I mean. I agree with what you are saying as far as what you wrote. In fact, last night I was in a restaurant on Ave A & 2nd St (A great Italian restaurant called Cantinella which I highly recommend, though a bit on the pricey side) and I was saying how over the past 20 years or so, the same "type" of people seem to still be in the area (though obviouosly with a new generational nuance). So I see what you are saying. The only point I was trying to make with my initial post is that you simply cannot tell who a person IS based upon which neighborhood they live in. SoHo, the Village, the Lower East Side, Williamsburg, etc tend to attract artist types due to the flavor of the neighborhoods but that doesn't mean that everyone there are neccessarily "artist types" even though they may have the look and live there.

I once knew someone, a very talented artist/photographer (not the one I mentioned in a previous post) who was often not taken seriously by his peers due to the fact that he was born and raised and lived in Queens and his peers lived in the various "artistic neighborhoods" that I mentioned. He was often dismissed (much to his extreme frustration) because of the way others had treated him because of this. It was as if they were saying to him that he couldn't possibly be serious because he lived where he did. It was around that time that I noticed this tendency among certain New Yorkers that somehow directly connected where they decided to plant their ass to WHO they were as a human being. About 20 years ago, I myself was "put to the test" by a now semi-famous musician who never took the band I was in seriously due to the fact that we were from Queens so in his eyes we weren't worthy of serious consideration either. (This semi-famous musician went to Queens College though..) This was the first time I ever came across such a thing but I notice that it seems to have gotten worse over the years. Now I'm nearly 40 so I could care less about any of it.

The ironic this is that NOW that very same Queens neighborhood is now "accepted" as "cool"...funny being that it's only considered so because all the other "cool" neighborhoods have been priced out...so people have to find a way to "rethink" their attitudes and adjust them a bit.

The point I am making is that to me, it doesn't make a difference whether or not a person lives on the Lower East Side or in Maspeth Queens or New Dorp Staten Island. You judge each person on their own merits. I just find it fascinating that this attitude exists at all....mainly from those who hadn't grown up here and have only lived here for a few years. It just doesn't make sense to me and my original post was only trying to get an explanation as to why this is.

The bottom line is I don't think you can judge WHO a person IS based upon where they decide to live. I tend to think people are much more complex than that.

Of course I am in agreement, Julian ;-)

I'm not looking for agreement, really ;-) Just trying to understand why this is. It's just something curious to me, being that in my travels lately I've been noticing more and more of this.

Another curious thing I've noticed around the city lately as well is the fact that some people seem almost embarrassed to say certain things with conviction.

For example: I am walking down Thompson Street in SoHo the other day and there is this young couple in front of me. They are talking about something or other, I think about where a certain restaurant was. The man didn't seem to know where it was and I happened to be about a step or two behind them trying to get around them. His girlfriend was trying to get him to remember the place and as I passed, he looks at me, then get's all aggitated with his girlfriend and says, "I've been here long enough, I know my way around.." and I was like..."relax, man. It's ok not to know where something is. I've been here in NYC for nearly 40 years and I still don't know where places are. It's ok"

I didn't say this to him but I wanted to since there was no reason for him to get all aggrivated with his girlfriend because he thought he seemed like a tourist or something. But I've seen this happen a lot. Especially in museums...where you can see that hesitation to say what you think because people are afraid of being laughed at for their opinions. But I only notice this among the downtown crowd. Nowhere else....

Interesting...

:-)

Perhaps chill young people downtown think not knowing where something is means they are not "real" newyorkers????

Maybe????

;-)

That is probably exactly what it is. The question is though, why does it matter? They're here now...enjoy it. If you don't know where something is...you'll find out. All this goes back to what I originally tried to find out. The WHY. Why does it matter to so many people what others will think?

...and the question of what a "real New Yorker" is is apparently still unresolved according to that thread, huh? ;-)

Julian, I was born and grew up here, and where you lived really had something to say about you, mostly ethnically or economically. Toward the early seventies, it seemed that with skyrocketing rents, people began to look outside of their pigeon holes and were happy finding livable, affordable space "outside their box."

But, when I grew up here, in the fifties/sixties especially, if you were, say, Ukranian, you'd live on the East Side (before it became the East Village, by the way), if you were Greek, you'd be in Astoria; Puerto Rican, mainly Chelsea or the UWS. We were poor and lived on the LES, where certain blocks were Jewish, others Italian, and so on. So at that time where you lived had lots of meaning. I really don't find it this way now. Then, I'm sort of out of touch with what the hipsters are thinking! I've always lived on the east side, by the way. Starting on South Street, moving up to St. Mark's, then 17th St., 78th St., and for the last zillion years, on 83rd St. I have no idea what that means, except that I've got an affordable 1BR on a nice block, so I guess I'm firmly planted.

I like your insight, though.

Oh, naturally there were neighborhoods that were of some sort of ethnic or economic make up (by the way, the east side, now the "East Village" still has a Ukrainian community...near 6th & 7th Streets and 2nd-3rd aves); just like if you were Italian you lived in what is now SoHo or Little Italy (or Bensonhurst in Brooklyn). That I can see, sure. I was merely talking about personality...and mainly about those who choose to live in a certain area. A person who recently moved to NYC from wherever and they decide to live in Astoria, let's say, says absolutely nothing about that individual other than he seemed to like that area (or that was an area he could afford). It says nothing about WHO that person is.

For example....just last night at a friend's birthday party at a bar downtown a young woman I was talking to asked me where I lived. I told her that I lived in Queens. You should have seen the look on her face, as if I had mentioned that I lived in a trailor park or something. It was truly funny. That statement alone made her immediately make a judgement which I find ridiculous. Needless to say, I ceased taking her seriously at that precice moment. This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. And the irony is, this young woman wasn't born or raised in NYC. She recently just moved here, yet she felt compelled to make such a judgement.

Interesting, no?

Washington Square Park was a traffic circle back then. New Yorkers are people from NY period. If you didn't take a regent exam in school growing up there's a 99.9% chance you're not a New Yorker

Thousands of New Yorkers move to FL each year. As a kid growing up in FL I learned (probably from my friends parents) to say "oh, here comes another asshole New Yorker. We didn't like the New Yorkers because it was put in our heads that they were all the same and were asses.

Now, as an adult, I still live in FL, although a different part from where I grew up. Most of my neighbors are (you guessed it) from New York. Guess what. Most of them really are ASSES ! And this is now me thinking on my own. There IS a stereotypical New Yorker: out for themselves and rude You always get that "stab you in the back" feeling from them. But I suppose you have to act this way to get by in a big city ? I'd say about 90% of NY'ers I meet act this way.

Oh, now I find myself telling my kids "another asshole New Yorker".

Obviously Julian you were not born and raised here. Nationality also plays a HUGE part in where your from. I'm Irish and grew up in Manhattan, specifically Inwood. And that makes a lot of sense. If I meet someone who is Dominican & lives in Manhattan, I think either Washington Heights, Inwood or Dominican Harlem (which is around Broadway in the 130's north to where the Hts. starts).

I now live in the Bronx. If you tell someone you are Italian & live in the Bronx, there are a few places you most likely live (Morris Park, Pelham Bay, Throgs Neck, etc). Same goes for Irish who live in Queens (Woodside), Carribean blacks (Crown Heights), Hasidic Jews (Crown Heights), Russians (Brighton Beach), Albanians (Pelham Parkway), Chinese (China Town), Koreans (Flushing), etc....

And neighborhoods do create a persons personality. Growing up in upper Manhattan, I rode the trains alone at 10. When I went to high school in the Bronx, the girls I went to school w/had no clue how where to even get the train, let alone ride one alone.

Now kids in my Bronx hood are VERY sheltered yet kids where my bf lives are another story. They're usually pusing baby carriages at 16 while the girls where I live are planning their prom.

Born and raised in jackson heights,ny. Went to brooklyn tech high school and college in brooklyn. Then i got a job and moved to alexandria, va. Holy fuckin shit does it suck down here. I've been here a week and can't wait to go back to nyc permanently. I came b/c i was tired of the train, dirtiness, rush, and uneducated people in nyc. But after spending a week in the most highest educated region in America I find it to be extremely boring. Food here sucks, everythings far, and even if one has a nice job and house it doesn't matter b.c barely anyone will be in ur business. Its also the same standard of living as queens basically and theres is soooooooooo much traffic even more than manhattan in my opinion. 1 thing i have learned is at least for me I cant find myself living anywhere except New York. But I had to at least give it a try so I could personally have experienced it. On a side note.....Howard Beach all dayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy........jackson heights alllll dayyyy ......lol

no matter what, people are always going to use sterotypes! quite frankly i think it's ignorant to judge someone by where they came from or what they wear! why can't we just all get along?

That is such nonsense...i grew up in a tough neighborhood in the bronx, where there were shootouts almost every day...people got shot and some got killed..does that makes me a gang member no! i have my bachelors degree today! and yes im from the hood...