Tuesday, January 20, 2009

NYC in DC's shadow



Is NYC going out of style? Clearly all eyes and ears were on Washington DC today, but what does the future hold for NYC? One of the worlds greatest cities is being hit hard by the economic times. Are young twenty somethings going to flee like rats from a sinking ship and move to other cities. Is the cost going to overburden residents. Here is what the New York Times thinks:

The sudden downturn has affected the very industries that give New York its identity — finance, media, advertising, real estate, even tourism — with extreme prejudice.

The result is that some New Yorkers feel that the city is losing, along with many jobs, its swagger and its sense of pre-eminence, which is no small matter in a town where many feel like it takes an outsize swagger to survive.

Dan Geiger, a journalist for a real estate trade publication, said he left a meeting on Sixth Avenue and 55th Street at 10 a.m., on a recent Tuesday and was alarmed to find the customary Midtown bustle absent. “The place was deserted, I mean dead,” he recalled. “I’ve never seen Sixth like that at that time of day before. It had a strange feeling to it, like a holiday almost.”
Are the days of a run down Times Square and poorly maintain subway trains making a come back? Let's hope not.

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