Quote:
Originally Posted by Halsted & Villagio
I was probably overbroad in my statement that EVERYTHING was covered in soot and dirt. Put it this way, the area largely considered to be the HEART of Manhattan, imo, is coverd in soot and dirt. My hotel overlooked Times Square - we stayed at the Renaissance. We walked from the Renaissance TS, Broadway, all the way over to Central Park. Then we took a cab back to the hotel then took the subway to the 911 Memorial then walked over to Wall Street. That whole area - from TS up and to Central Park and back to Wall Street was most definitely covered in soot and dirt. A thin layer but a layer nonetheless.
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We have a jewel in Chicago people  |
The touristy and/or heavily commercial parts of Manhattan are grimy - anyone claiming otherwise is wearing some seriously rose-colored glasses. And the trash bag issue - understanding why it exists still doesn't explain why the richest big city in the richest country in the world can't come up with a better system for waste disposal than simply piling it up on sidewalks. It's disgusting. Some of the side streets a little away from the busiest commercial areas aren't so bad as to be called grimy, but they still feel less clean than Chicago which I think is mainly a function of just the raw density of humanity in Manhattan. The few parts of Chicago that feel anywhere near as grimy as New York are also areas with heavy concentrations of humanity.
I like visiting New York, and if I was earning $300k+/yr I'd probably consider living there because I could then afford to mitigate at least the worst of the downsides. Part of the reason I live in a vintage walk-up in River North is because it is at least somewhat reminiscent of some of the side streets in parts of Manhattan like Chelsea or Hell's Kitchen or Murray Hill - relatively quiet areas that aren't filled with skyscrapers but are still walking distance to all the offices and tourist attractions in Midtown. In many ways the part of River North I live in (the officially-designated "River North Gallery District" roughly bounded by Orleans, Huron, Lasalle, and Chicago Ave) is functionally similar to Hells Kitchen or Murray Hill.
Anyway, I live in Chicago because it is a big, important city, and offers many of the amenities that only big, important cities offer, yet is less crazy and less dirty feeling than Manhattan or San Francisco. Give me Boystown over the Castro any day of the week. Give me Michigan Avenue over 5th Avenue or Union Square. Give me Pilsen over Bushwick or the Haight. In short, give me Chicago.