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"Report": Rich Upper East Siders Think NYC’s Turning Into "Moscow On The Hudson"
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 19, 2014
Modified Mar 19, 2014
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 19, 2014
Modified Mar 19, 2014
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We learned this weekend that downtrodden Upper East Side residents are being cruelly forced to sacrifice their social lives for the privilege of living in modestly priced studio apartments in the safest, cleanest neighborhood in the city. But that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the depth of their alienation: a CEO writing for The Very Classy Trump Family Observer talked to a bunch of well-to-do anonymous folks in the neighborhood and gave them room to vent about wanting to leave Soviet New York City for Miami. "It’s not a Woody Allen movie anymore," a "silver fox whispered" to the writer at his Fifth Avenue penthouse. "It’s Moscow on the Hudson."
The whole piece is so chockfull of ridiculous quotes (“I mean, the very fact that I would be jeered at and pilloried in my own backyard for wearing a sheared dyed mink...Well it’s just unconscionable") and ridiculous reportage ("I braved the crowds at J.F.K. Airport for a two-day jaunt to Jamaica for a respite at my rum partner’s island paradise, the fabled Goldeneye"), it truly seems like it could be an Onion parody of one of those clueless Times trend stories about downtrodden wealthy folks. But The Observer published the anonymous wailing as fact, so we will treat it as such.
Like the charming scenario that starts the piece:
It was yet another average wintry day on the Upper East Side navigating the onyx, iced streets.
"I feel like I’m living in East Germany or Moscow,”; a Wall Street friend said, taking a spoonful of anemic chicken noodle soup and saltine crackers at a local diner ($5.90) because it was too frigid to venture East of Lexington.
“This weather really has me down,” he shivered, wrapped in a khaki wool coat and a Russian-style military hat. “And then you realize you’re out of favor and that everyone hates you,” he complained.
“How can you say that?” I asked in disbelief. “Who hates you?”
“Them,” he shivered, eating the lonely saltine left in the cellophane wrapper, crumbs pouring onto his rough, woolen trousers. “We used to run this town. Now I feel like they want to run us all out.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a tad paranoid?” I said.
“You’re in the ad business. Remember that commercial ‘Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful’?”
“Yes,” I shrugged.
“Well, the 2014 version is ‘Don’t hate me because I’m 10021.’”
If "don't hate me because I'm 10021" isn't a writerly construct, we applaud columnist and advertising executive Richard Kirshenbaum for embedding himself into the mimosa-swirling set so seamlessly as to become one with the cured gravlax.
Then there's this one:
“Who says I have to live here?” he said. “I mean seriously. First it was Occupy Wall Street. Now it’s a tale of two cities,” he said. “All I do is work 23 hours a day, provide the tax base and make donations to every charity, and suddenly I’m maligned. Who says I need to be here when I can be living in Miami, with no state income tax, rollerblading with Brazilian supermodels in string bikinis?”
Whit Stillman couldn't have written a better monologue.
Tagged
ny observer
poor you
rich people
ues
upper east side
wealth warps your brain
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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