It's A Hell Of A Town
- Katherine
- Jan 31, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 15, 2019
New York City is not a city that roots for you. It isn’t on your side and doesn’t care if you succeed. New York City wants you to fail. You shouldn’t move here with dreams of making it in “the big city”. That’s probably not what’s going to happen to you. The goal here is to survive: to white knuckle it for as long as you can, get thrown off, and look long in yourself to see if you want to get up and try again.
New York City is also nothing like whatever form of art or music you that brought you here. The New York City of elegantly struggling writers and charming toughs is mostly dead. The Brooklyn Biggie rapped about is mostly gone persisting only in aggressively neglected pockets and boundaries getting pushed further out every month. CBGB’s is a Target Pop-up . A high-end men’s clothing store. You don’t want to live here now. You want to live here in the 70’s or 80’s or 90’s or early 00’s. You want to live in the New York City of your imagination.
There is no place like New York City. That’s true, but there are better places to be young, to be an artist, to be a writer, and to make music. You will struggle here. You will struggle to eat, to pay your rent, to find a community, and if you endure you will struggle still. You will struggle and be rewarded with struggle.
Unless you are rich. It’s a great city to rich in, then again, so are most cities.
I’m not going to say you shouldn’t come to New York City. I’m also not going to tell you that you should. If you manage to live here for any space of time you’ll endure a protracted isolation until you find community. You’ll live in the spaces just vacated others. With their ghosts. You’ll touch others and fail to connect. You will be alone and it will feel unending.
The good news is that no matter who you are, there’s a place for you here. The trick is finding it and if you do find your place you’ll be rewarded with a sense of belonging unlike any other. Just don’t expect things to get any easier. This isn’t an easy town.
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