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posts about #midtown more →
Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
This Is Not A Movie
Bad Weather Destroys New York City
Wild Salmon: Chodorow Does Fish
Midtown Clubbing: Amalia And D'Or
BREAKING: Carnegie Deli Explodes
EJ Revealed, Robot Gives Pity Money
Bimbo & Loveborg Give It Away on Fifth Avenue
Asses Fondled, Bottled at Waldorf
Playboy Editor Endures Midtown Sac 'n' Crack

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DinaRonson : Elizabeth Cady Stanton
11/20/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
After moving to what I swear to Jebus is called on the Shitysearch map "South Central Midtown" I now know why there are so few residential buildings.
Kill me now.
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RollsRoyceRevenge
11/19/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
The New York Public Library
Bryant Park
Grand Central Terminal
The Oyster Bar
The Campbell Apartment
The little gardens at Tudor City
That crazy bar in the Equitable Building
The Waldorf Astoria
MoMA
The Algonquin Hotel
The Morgan Library
Etc, etc, etc.

As long as you see Midtown as a varied collection of landmarks, public spaces, services and whatnot as opposed to a "neighborhood" I see nothing wrong with the place.
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badasscat
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
I like how Alphabet City is apparently in Greenwich Village according to that map.
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TheBusinessGuy
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
I had no idea my doctors and dentist are so cool.
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Mike Jahn
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
This would explain all the amusing Eurotrash and manque models I see daily using the free wireless at Subtle Tea on 30th and Madison.
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DinaRonson : Elizabeth Cady Stanton
11/20/09

@Mike Jahn: I know; GET OUT.
I live here - go back to your hotel. You know the one who's trash is picked up at 4AM weekdays.
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yourfriendandneighbor
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
I blame Chuck Bass' new hotel.
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lostarchitect
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
Midtown is a place you have to go sometimes, unhappily and with no lack of complaint. There, you fight through the hordes of (lost?) tourists to get to your destination, and then back again. Someone asks you for directions every block or so. The streets are numbered. THE STREETS ARE NUMBERED. When you get home, you crack a beer and weep quietly.
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Unsolicited Advice
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
As always, follow the money to determine why a lot of well-heeled vampires are lurking. Proximity to Cthulhu is of the utmost.
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Senor_Wences
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
The sleeping giant that is Midtown awoke the minute that Red Lobster opened. Hush puppies!
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Sergio Hernandez
11/18/09

@Senor_Wences: Cheddar bay biscuits!
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gawkimo
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
Back from what? I always liked Midtown. It's the fucking middle of Manhattan, where all the skyscrapers and theater are. The only people who don't like Midtown are those fucking hipsters and people who utter platitudes about tourists.
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Aatom
11/18/09

@gawkimo: exactly.
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eatsshootsleaves
11/18/09

@gawkimo: Ironically, any hipster that has moved to New York City from the outside has moved there because of a trip they took to Midtown as a little kid.

I get it -- you want to distance yourself from the tourists. You were one, once.
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Steverino Begins
11/18/09

@eatsshootsleaves: I know a lot of New Yorkers who have a love/hate relationship with Midtown for that very reason. I don't think it makes them hipsters.

I have a theory that Times Square is like New York's foyer. It's nice as a welcoming and meeting point, but when people want to hang out there exclusively it just seems silly (especially if they haven't even seen the rest of the house).
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badasscat
11/18/09

@Steverino Begins: Well, "midtown" is huge to the point that the word doesn't really mean anything. I don't think anybody meant to use it as a definition of the neighborhood's personality - midtown has no personality of its own, because it has so many different ones.

Times Square is a place most New Yorkers (native or transplanted) avoid, but there are other parts of midtown that we certainly don't. Say what you want about Ippudo, but midtown still has the best ramen shops in the city, for just one example. Ah, ramen.
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Edited by badasscat at 11/18/09 7:18 PM badasscat was starred badasscat was unstarred

gawkimo
11/18/09

@eatsshootsleaves: I don't want to distance myself from the tourists. Tourists are good for the local economy! I went to kindergarten in the UWS when heroin addicts were knifing gays on W 83rd St., raised by a good Queens man who was a cab driver when cabbies were struggling artists not struggling Subconties, and I lived in NYC as an adult.

And, yes, I've been a tourist too :^) Love it!

#tips
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Edited by gawkimo at 11/18/09 7:22 PM gawkimo was starred gawkimo was unstarred

Understater
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
Is Hell's Kitchen considered Midtown? Because I love that area.
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Brian Moylan
11/18/09

@Understater: I love it so much I live there--down the street from Cheyenne Jackson, Christopher Meloni, Rosie O'Donnell, and the famousest Julia Allison!
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Kissinghim
11/18/09

@Understater: Are you also generic to an unspeakable degree, like the nabe?
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Understater
11/18/09

@Kissinghim: I'm so generic I don't even have a name in real life.
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sanyucat
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
Agreed. I was first alerted to the burgeoning midtown cultural scene by the constant line of tourists waiting behind velvet ropes outside the Abercrombie & Fitch on 5th. The whole block smells like cologne; it's everything I had hoped for when I moved to the city.
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Sergio Hernandez
11/18/09

@sanyucat: The entire block on Broadway between Houston and Prince Street also reeks of cologne, thanks to the newly-opened Hollister.

(Although anywhere on Broadway south of Houston is a bad example of Places in New York City That Should Be Sacred)
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sanyucat
11/18/09

@Sergio Hernandez: Someday we'll be able to tell our grandchildren magical, sepia-toned stories of our years in the city. The bedbugs, the time I was chased down Lexington by a galloping rat in the middle of the night, the shirtless teenaged "models" shivering outside of Hollister during Christmas season, the time someone pressed a boner against my leg on the subway . . . ahh, memories.
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downwithdebbie
11/18/09

@sanyucat: And occasionally they have their catalog models welcoming people in from the street. See! Models on the street! Sooo New York.
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Sergio Hernandez
11/18/09

@sanyucat: Speaking of sepia-toned memories... when I was a child, I — no joke — used to think the world had actually been in black and white until whenever it was color television came along.
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Edited by Sergio Hernandez at 11/18/09 1:17 PM Sergio Hernandez was starred Sergio Hernandez was unstarred

sanyucat
11/18/09

@Sergio Hernandez: That's awesome! Like there was a worldwide "Wizard of Oz" moment. Except without the terrifyingly earnest representatives of local guilds, leagues, etc.
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sanyucat
11/18/09

@downwithdebbie: I swear, EVERY time I walk by that place those guys are outside. Go away teens! I don't want to see nipples at 10 in the goddamn a. m.!
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Sergio Hernandez
11/18/09

@sanyucat: Ha, exactly.

Although I guess our equivalent of the munchkins and lollipop guild would be the FCC, heh.
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eatsshootsleaves
11/18/09

@Sergio Hernandez: @sanyucat: I used to think that they invented color movies partway through the filming of the Wizard of Oz.
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Atilla the Bun
11/19/09

@Sergio Hernandez: You should download the This American Life radio episode called "A Little Bit of Knowledge." The first several minutes of it are about people who thought certain bizarre things were true until it was revealed otherwise later in life, like a college-age girl who asked at a keg party "when did unicorns become extinct?" The anecdotes are hilarious, quite like your b&w world story.
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sanyucat
11/19/09

@Sergio Hernandez: @Atilla the Bun: I love that episode, especially the unicorn part. My sister thought until very recently that the two-headed llamas from Dr. Doolittle were real, because our Nana used to always refer to the llama farm near our house as the "push-me-pull-you farm."

Which begs the question -- why would someone farm llamas?
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sanyucat
11/19/09

@eatsshootsleaves: I think I thought that until just now.
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sanyucat
11/19/09

@Atilla the Bun: I replied above, out of order. I am a moron.
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SidAndFinancy
11/18/09

In reply to Counterpoint: Midtown Sucks
Isn't that like saying all of those people were spotted using a restroom? Every has to go to midtown from time to time.
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muppet_baby
11/18/09

@SidAndFinancy: Also, what does "midtown" even mean? North of 14th? Is Flatiron part of midtown? Where's the northern border? So many questions, that I only marginally care about answering.
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sanyucat
11/18/09

@SidAndFinancy: Stars: They're Just Like Us!
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City_Dater
11/18/09

@SidAndFinancy:

Yes! In so many ways...

And as long as there are movie stars in Broadway shows, there will be celebrities hanging out in midtown. Stars: they're just like us -- they don't want to stagger more than two blocks to begin their after-work drinking!
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quotidian
11/18/09

@muppet_baby: I always thought of it as 34th to 59th, and maybe 2d to 8th.
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laurasaurus
11/18/09

@muppet_baby: I definitely wouldn't say Flatiron is Midtown. There's a feel to places between 34th and 59th and 2nd and 8th as mentioned by quotidian.
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Steverino Begins
11/18/09

@SidAndFinancy: You hit the nail on the Naked Cowboy's head.
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daveyjonesisdead
11/18/09

@laurasaurus: It's the fact that the bedrock is close to the surface that defines midtown - 18 feet down in Times Square, hundreds of feet down in Greenwich village. You can build tall buildings on it cheaply relative to other parts of town, where you'd have to dig much deeper; the same goes for the the financial district. But I can't find anything that shows the depths against streets.
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