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What Is Middle Class in Manhattan?
New York Times ^ | January 18, 2013 | AMY O’LEARY

Posted on 01/20/2013 7:55:47 AM PST by proxy_user

DRIVE through almost any neighborhood around the country, and class divisions are as clear as the gate around one community or the grittiness of another. From the footprint of the house to the gleam on the car in the driveway, it is not hard to guess the economic status of the people who live there.

Even the landscape is carved up by class. From 15,000 feet up, you can stare down at subdivisions and tract houses, and America’s class lines will stare right back up at you.

Manhattan, however, is not like most places. Its 1.6 million residents hide in a forest of tall buildings, and even the city’s elite take the subway. Sure, there are obvious brand-name buildings and tony ZIP codes where the price of entry clearly demands a certain amount of wealth, but middle-class neighborhoods do not really exist in Manhattan — probably the only place in the United States where a $5.5 million condo with a teak closet and mother-of-pearl wall tile shares a block with a public housing project.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: manhattan; middleclass; wealthy
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An amusing read, but not half as amusing as the comments section. I would be curious to hear from FRpers who live or have lived in Manhattan.
1 posted on 01/20/2013 7:55:55 AM PST by proxy_user
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To: proxy_user

My son lives there....I don’t know where I went wrong with him....


2 posted on 01/20/2013 7:58:28 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: proxy_user

I don’t even want to think about it. I’m downright destitute compared to most welfare bums.


3 posted on 01/20/2013 8:04:04 AM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: proxy_user

I should have said that I do live in Manhattan. Things have changed quite a bit since I moved in, back in 1981. I kind of liked it the way it was.


4 posted on 01/20/2013 8:05:31 AM PST by proxy_user
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To: proxy_user
DRIVE through almost any neighborhood around the country, and class divisions are as clear as the gate around one community or the grittiness of another. From the footprint of the house to the gleam on the car in the driveway, it is not hard to guess the economic status of the people who live there.

Its kinda funny really. The left talks about class divisions but they really don't exist out here in most of flyover country. I've got 3 neighbors (with a lake on one side) but I'm the only 1 who doesn't own multiple homes. I'm the poor boy in the neighborhood but the neighbors trust me and we all leave our homes unlocked.
5 posted on 01/20/2013 8:14:23 AM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: proxy_user

Had a friend who rented an 8oo sq ft apt there for $2400 per month plus everything. She has since cleared out of NY and is now safely back in the sunny south, but she does miss Manhattan. It is a lively place with lots to do but the cost drives most normal people (financially, I mean) out.


6 posted on 01/20/2013 8:21:30 AM PST by jstaff
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To: proxy_user

I visited NYC once in 1966 for three days. I miss it like a case of Bubonic Plague.


7 posted on 01/20/2013 8:30:19 AM PST by MasterGunner01
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To: cripplecreek
DRIVE through almost any neighborhood around the country, and class divisions are as clear as the gate around one community or the grittiness of another. From the footprint of the house to the gleam on the car in the driveway, it is not hard to guess the economic status of the people who live there.

In my 'hood, the ones with the cars that have gleam are on public assistance. Those of us working are driving around in beaters.
8 posted on 01/20/2013 8:32:47 AM PST by chrisser (Senseless legislation does nothing to solve senseless violence.)
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To: proxy_user

Manhattan is NOT all of NYC!!

Middle class in NYC live in Brooklyn, Bronx or Queens while the wealthy live in Manhattan.

Other Cities have similar wealthy,middle class and poor neighborhoods.LA has Hollywood, DC has Potomac, Austin has West Lake... NYC is no different.

Supply and Demand along with pricing of housing dictates where most folks will reside regardless of city.

That said, and as a born and raised New Yorker now in Texas, You could not pay me enough to live with those SOB’s in Manhattan. Give me Texas anyday...


9 posted on 01/20/2013 8:51:21 AM PST by Le Chien Rouge
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To: proxy_user

I live here. Swore I never would, but the job brought me here +20 yrs ago. With patience and prudence, got a cheap fixer upper apt in what is now a hot nabe. With affordable housing cost, the rest of life is manageable. Don’t own or need a car. Rent one when needed. Tight living space means less accumulation of “stuff.”

The key thing to remember about locating somewhere is that it is PEOPLE who make a place liveable. NYers are mostly insufferably liberal, but they are interesting, talented, intense. And you are much more likely to have human contact here than in the burbs. Numbers alone raise the odds you will find an affinity group. Even churches! Yes you can find all flavors here.

The cultural amenities are prodigious, far more than anyone could begin to tap fully even if you could afford them. But there are also plenty of cheap thrills.

If you live on the Internet, then you might as well live in a rural dubbowide and save your money. But if you want and need human contact, you’ve got to go where the people are.

Kids complicate the equation, and I have none. More than two and you’ve gotta split from manhattan. Especially if they are not all boys, or girls. Unless you are certifiably wealthy. So there is a lot of turnover here. Friends come and go.

In terms of retirement, it actually can be a very workable option, except for the fact you probably won’t have family nearby.


10 posted on 01/20/2013 8:53:39 AM PST by Tenega
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Comment #11 Removed by Moderator

To: Le Chien Rouge

NEW YORK CITY??? Getarope!.. Just kidding!


12 posted on 01/20/2013 9:15:59 AM PST by BigIsleGal (Wake Me Up When the Stupid Wears Off)
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To: proxy_user

I grew up in Manhattan, in Stuyvesant Town which was built as, and remains I think (my brother still lives there), a middle-class somewhat bucolic enclave on the east side around 20th street.

When I was a kid (during the 60s-70s) it was really true that in our area of Manhattan you had rich and poor and middle all mixed in together. It was also somewhat ethnically diverse, but still mostly white and american unlike now. I watch the local TV news and it seems that EVERY SINGLE PERSON is a foreigner, regardless of color, age or station in life.

Well-heeled people also sent their kids to public school, at least the ones in my neighborhood. I attended school with really wealthy kids from the upper east side and our own gramercy park neighborhood and also some poor kids from the projects around the mid-twenties. The poor kids were a mixed bag ethinically, plenty were white.

Everyone rode the subway together and there was a great feeling of “we’re all in this together”. Of course that was early days. By the late 70s crime was king and, as I tell my daughter, you may see movies about NYC in the 70s and say: oh it couldn’t have been that bad - but, believe me it was.

No matter what else, good bad or indifferent, he has done in his life, Rudolph Giuliani pulled that city back from the edge of the abyss, single-handedly, while every day the NY Times and the rest of the libs called him a fascist pig.

Bloomberg has of course ruined the city, in a way that crime and filth never could.

I love NY, but I’m glad I don’t live there anymore. I think it is becoming a 2 class city, high and low and anybody in between better head for the outer boroughs.

However, if I ever hit mega-super-lotto I’d consider moving back.


13 posted on 01/20/2013 9:39:53 AM PST by jocon307
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To: proxy_user

I’ve only been to NYC once. Me and a friend were going to see a play. It was Sunday morning, and we were waiting for the big ticket booth to open up so we could buy matinee tickets. We went to a restaurant to have a cup of coffee while we waited. It was a pretty good sized restaurant and there was only one other table occupied. The waitress told us to go sit in the back. I suppose it was because we only ordered coffee. NYC is an interesting place.


14 posted on 01/20/2013 9:43:31 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: proxy_user

New York is a socialist state.

That’s why the middle class is disappearing.

You can’t used Marxism to help the middle class. He wanted to get rid of the middle class.

So now liberals think they can use the ideas of Karl Marx to help the middle class?


15 posted on 01/20/2013 9:49:00 AM PST by Tzimisce (The American Revolution began when the British attempted to disarm the Colonists.)
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To: proxy_user
"Where else can I run all your errands - post office, cleaners, drug store, hardware store, grocery store etc.- within five blocks of my home? "

Anywhere in Worcester County for 20% of what you pay now, stupid.

16 posted on 01/20/2013 9:50:19 AM PST by pabianice (washington, dc ..)
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To: proxy_user

What is this article talking about? What is a “Manhattan,” and why would people want to live in one? And where is this New York City thing located? Never heard of it.


17 posted on 01/20/2013 10:01:15 AM PST by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
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To: dagogo redux
A Manhattan is whiskey and vermouth, with a cherry. It is named after a high rent district out on the eastern fringe. I have no idea why anyone would want to live there.
18 posted on 01/20/2013 10:18:11 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Gaffer
My son lives there....I don’t know where I went wrong with him....

____________________________________________

Maybe he wants to test himself against the best and brightest in his chosen field. Unless he's a farmer, fisherman, lumberjack, oil field hand or mining engineer the real challenge is in NYC.

Or maybe he wants to see what it's like to live with museums, philharmonics, operas, stage plays, cutting edge music, cinema, fashion at all levels and virtually every other human art within walking distance and performed by the best and brightest.

Or maybe he just wants to schtup the best and brightest foreign girls.

19 posted on 01/20/2013 10:26:30 AM PST by wtc911 (Amigo - you've been had.)
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To: wtc911

Personally, I’d go with the schtupping thing. But you are deluded if you think that NYC has the best to offer in this country in the way of the ‘best and brightest’, particularly for engineering. I know better.


20 posted on 01/20/2013 10:29:11 AM PST by Gaffer
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