Ramblings of a NYC Native

I’m a native New Yorker—which is something to boast about. With each passing year, the number of us that remain seemingly dwindles.

The New York I grew up with is different from the one I find myself in today. Sometimes, it doesn't even feel like my own. Everyone is suddenly moving to Brooklyn and the non natives know of more hip spots than I ever did. All of my favorite spots have long ago shut down. I feel like a stranger roaming the streets, ruled by out of towners who come, stay for a decade, and then abandon the city they reshaped for their own benefit.

Have I overstayed my welcome?

The current crowd of company doesn't understand my disdain. They roll their eyes and scowl. They judge me for being a jaded New Yorker, or worse, a washed out New Yorker. My logic doesn't fit in with their inflamed impressions of the city. But it's true. Contemporary New York, with its dichotomy of hipsters and financiers, offends us natives.

Like every New Yorker, I live and breath New York. Though it sounds glamorous to an outsider, when stripped down to its bones it morphs into something of the opposite. It means the subway is a lifeline, and because I'm in an outer borough, am subjected to longer than normal wait times and train delays. It means that the hustle that everyone gloats about has ingrained itself in my blood, making me pay for the things I'm told I need with my life. It means I'm forced to put up with constant critiques from people who don’t know me. That I'll always end up paying more for the basic necessities in life just because outsiders find the place I call home to be desirable.

We have this reputation that precedes us—of being tough. If so, then we should be able to handle all the changes, right? The death of small businesses; the displacements; the gentrification. The obliteration of artistic expression and care free living in exchange for a focus on consumerism and exhausting all our energy on work.

But how can we handle that which does not support us? When the transformation leads to a cultural divide as opposed to progression. When newly established classicism pushes out a whole network of people, the very people who have given New York its credibility. Can we continue to flourish? Or will all that had made New York appealing evaporate as eccentricity continues to be replaced with more rigid values?

I’m a believer in the idea that art drives culture. Visual, written, spoken, drawn, worn, displayed, molded. The mediums through which it chooses to emerge are endless. And yet each form has the ability to influence us. It inspires by transforming our perceptions of reality. Through its lens, we begin to look and think deeper into what reality may actually be. Without our own artistic expression, or inspiration from others', would we be as deep of thinkers? Would we be as able to understand and empathize with worlds so outside our own?

We create to be understood—by our own inner selves as much as by others. As the melting pot of the world, New Yorkers have always used art out of necessity. We needed it to be understood by those different from us. To recognize and appreciate the many cultures and perspectives that thrive here. It serves as a duality—to distinguish us, but also blend us into one unique culture. New Yorker.

The title holds so much power. It tells the rest of the world that you are interesting and cultured. That you've seen the world just by living here. They don't need to know much more about you to make such declarations.

But I worry its power is waning. The New York of today is defined not through its range of diversity and intrigue, but rather through homogeny. We all look the same, think the same, dress the same. Trends rule the streets and individualism is something rarely seen anymore. When it is spotted, I lower my shades and give it a long look of appreciation, soaking it all in.