July 22, 2005
I've Been Wanting to Say This For So Long...
This entry over at Pop Culture Junkies was so much fun to write: Missouri: A New York State of Mind
Without a doubt, New York is still a fantastic city - but I am also concerned about how badly this city seems to view itself in the greater scheme of things. St. Louis has such an inferiority complex -- and I'm just trying to do my little part, here and there, to:St. Louis has always wanted to be more like New York – when all the time, New York has been becoming more like St. Louis. Step up from the subway on Times Square and where are the naughty bookstores? They’re gone! Where are the mom-n-pop restaurants? They’re gone! Instead you have Target and Red Lobster and that quintessential New York Italian dining experience, The Olive Garden, greeting you as you ascend from that heavily-policed and guarded platform.
1. rationalize why I live here and
2. enable others to live here without shame
I dunno if that's actually healthy thinking, but I never claimed to be well!
Posted July 22, 2005 10:01 PM
They're there, Rob, you just have to look a little harder and spend a bit more time exploring. The Roxy, Stardust, John's, Famiglia's, Ray-Bari Pizza, the Stage Deli, and all those joints on 9th Avenue like Amarone are all still there. Yes, mixed in with chains, of course. I still think the best cup of coffee in Times Square is at Dunkin' Donuts (which was run out of St. Louis a few years ago...yes, they were filthy and needed to close).
I always tell a story about my daughter, who just finished 6 years at Columbia and is now a school principal in Manhattan. One day she called to say she and 10 friends had just returned from dinner. Where did they go? The Olive Garden (bypassing Carmines!). At which point I said: "You can take the girl out of the midwest, but you can't take the midwest out of the girl." That became one of her AOL away messages.
And more than just civic efforts deep-sixed the naughty bookstores. Anything you could have found in those dives is now available in seemingly unlimited quantities on the internet. They became an anachronism.
-- posted by: L on July 23, 2005 10:05 AM
