Do I need to earn more to live in New York

The famous founder of Y Combinator, creator of Yahoo! Store Paul Graham wrote an article about how every city sends its own message to people. If this signal suits you, then this city is yours. So, New York, in his opinion, says “We need to earn more!” It's hard to disagree with this. Ilya Geraskin I figured out whether to earn more to live in New York.

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About this city it is difficult to write, not having gone down in a banal description, of which there is enough on the Internet. On duty, I had to live half a year in the most famous and legendary city of America. Of course, this is not much, but this time was quite enough to form an opinion about the city from the point of view not of a tourist, but of a typical Knickerboker - a resident of New York, and find out how ordinary office plankton lives (even if the link is slightly above average).

American life

Americans are quite conservative and respect traditions. Many things remain unchanged for decades, and some even for centuries. Completely different aspects of life are touched upon, starting with the non-metric measurement system (which no one else uses except them), and ending with interiors with everyday nuances. If you watch a movie set in the mid-twentieth century, the appearance of a typical American house - both outside and inside - is no different from the average house of our time. Except that instead of TVs with picture tubes, now everyone has LCD panels (and one of my local colleagues foamed at the mouth to prove that plasma is hundreds of times better than LCD and even OLED).

Among the household nuances, I can include a completely ridiculous shower system, when the shower is walled into the wall, therefore, dear ladies, your tricks with separate hair washing will not work here. Instead of a mixer with hot and cold water, there is one handle that opens both pipes at the same time; you can only regulate the temperature, but not the pressure, which is always maximum and produces an unpleasant stream of water. Honestly, I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how it works. Gigantism reigns in the kitchen - the stove, oven and refrigerator are one and a half times larger than ours. For what? Elementary Watson! So that a turkey can fit in there. Otherwise, what would Thanksgiving be without turkey?

Attitude to life

Americans also have a special attitude towards life. They don't care about many things. So in summer cafes there are open packets of ketchup, mayonnaise, sugar - and no one thinks of grabbing a handful and taking them home, rejoicing at how they deceived the system and saved on food. But tolerance ends abruptly where their rights and freedoms begin. If you turn on your phone while watching a movie in a cinema, you will instantly hear an insistent hiss from behind and a demand to turn it off so as not to disturb others. They are open, and no matter what anyone says about the “duty smile,” it is quite normal for them to compliment a complete stranger on the street in the spirit of “cool blouse!” or start an abstract conversation about the weather in the elevator.

If you hesitate at a metro station and stand looking around, one of the locals will definitely come up and ask: “Where are you going? Let me tell you where to go.” Sometimes there is too much openness, and this is strongly felt in American bars - everyone talks at the top of their voices, and when the bar is filled to capacity, people just start screaming. One day, my colleague and I were walking along the embankment and heard a growing rumble. We thought that somewhere nearby there was a concert and the crowd was buzzing, waiting for the musicians to perform. But when we turned the corner, we saw that it was just an open-air bar for about 100 people.

Downtown life

On one of our business trips, we were given an apartment in one of the classic high-rise buildings in downtown. 55-storey skyscraper in the area Tribeca consists entirely of rental apartments. The class of apartments is luxury, but the only luxury here is its own gym with a small pool and concierge service. The apartments themselves are not luxurious. Perhaps because the best years of this building occurred during the Clinton presidency (or even earlier) and, as is customary here, there have been no major renovations of the apartments and are unlikely to happen. Rent of such an apartment per month will cost about 10 iPhones of the latest model.

View from the 22 floor window to the World Trade Center. Photo from the personal archive of the author

The fact that the area is considered to be quite respectable does not interfere with a huge number of low-grade stores in the spirit of our stalls. So, if you suddenly want to buy food in the middle of the night, you will have to deal with sellers from the Middle East and overpriced prices for the whole modest range.

All culinary delights can be found in the largest organic food supermarket - Whole Foodswhere it is easier to find milk from happy cows and eggs from chickens on free-range (+ 100% of the price, of course) than a regular white bread loaf.

Labor everyday life

A typical Manhattanite's workday begins with a commute to work. In most cases by metro. Just two flights of stairs underground, a turnstile - and you are already at the station. The subway in New York is not at all what Russian people are used to seeing. It's more like an underground tram. It’s better not to go out on the city streets during rush hour (except on a bicycle; fortunately, there are plenty of bicycle paths and it’s also easy to rent a bicycle). Not a single morning for a typical American is complete without coffee, which is why there are huge queues at Starbucks (which are on every corner here). Who knows, maybe New Yorkers are even throwing their money at their angry bosses. WhatsApp pictures of the queue at Starbucks, as we are lying about traffic jams, and this is a good reason for being late for work.

At lunchtime, many people prefer a business lunch in the neighboring restaurants and cafes. Our office was in the area Hell's kitchen (hellish kitchen), where you can every day go to lunch in a new institution and they will start repeating in about two months.

After work, local bars are trying to lure tired office plankton through happy hours (happy hours) - usually two hours from 5 to 7 pm, during which you can order beer and snacks for half the price.

Bar Dead Rabbit, recognized as the best bar in the world. Photo from the personal archive of the author

Downtown attractions

After a working day in the downtown, you can entertain yourself by walking around the neighborhood. There are not many options to go, but there are plenty to choose from:

• The Brooklyn Bridge. Everyone who has a TV has seen him, but everyone wants to check what he is like in life. Not far from the bridge there is the building of the town hall with a small public garden, where you can see and feed the hordes of squirrels. There’s really nothing more to look at.
• Wall Street. Despite the big name, this street can offer little. We never met the famous wolf from Wall Street, but there is a bull with eggs that are annoying tourists, glittering from constant rubbing.
• World Trade Center. Instead of the twin towers, the only skyscraper now rises, on the upper floors of which there is an observation deck (35 dollars, it didn’t hurt). Near recently opened a subway station with a monumental building called Oculus. The entire station cost the city 6 billions of dollars (hello, Navalny). In place of the twin towers, there is now a very touching monument to those killed in the 9 / 11 catastrophe - the names of the dead are engraved around the basement perimeter of the towers and hundreds of the thinnest streams of water flow down, symbolizing the tears with which people mourn their loved ones.
• Battery Park. In my humble opinion, this is a downtown gem. The park is located near the beginning of the western embankment and has many secluded corners with benches, shady alleys with cascading branches of perennial willows - in general, it’s quite a place for filming another Hollywood melodrama. A view of the breathtaking sunsets is included. Where Battery Park ends, the embankment with dozens of cozy piers begins, which is so pleasant to stroll along slowly.

This sunset is hardly anyone saw not through the camera of your phone. It turned out that there was a photographer right behind us. National Geographic, the picture could be seen on their twitter. Photo from the personal archive of the author

Life in east midtown

During another business trip, we were successfully settled five blocks from the office. These five quarters we walked quite comfortably on foot every morning. Although in November there were days when it was easier to hook up on the subway (the entrance to which was right in our house), and walk one street on foot than get wet and freeze in the November rain with the wind.

The main problem of living in midtown is noise. Noise from the sirens of fire trucks and ambulances, honking drivers, who are not bothered even by late night. This round-the-clock cacophony is complemented by the hum of fans from the cooling systems of neighboring high-rise buildings. And since the streets are quite narrow and the houses are high, even the upper floors cannot save you from all this. Comfortable, perhaps, only on floors above 40.

Not far from our house was Gristedes - the store where the famous Carey Bradshaw from Sex and the City loved to shop. In fact, the store pleasantly pleases with its prices and rich selection of products and ready-made food. The only problem with this store is that in summer the air conditioner sets a brisk +17 Celsius, which makes it quite possible to freeze in 30-degree heat.

Photo from the personal archive of the author

Where can you go in the western midtown?

• Central Park - of course, the first thing you need to do is go to the central park, which starts from 60 st. The park in the heart of Manhattan amazes with its size. To walk along it, it will take two to three hours of calm. This is if nowhere especially linger on the way, and linger there where there is. Dozens of small ponds with red-eared turtles, hundreds of paths with benches, huge lawns, where everyone lies and picnic. All this is complemented by a huge number of squirrels, scurrying from tree to tree, and even raccoons living near water bodies.
• Chelsea District - a once-factory district quickly turned into the cultural center of Manhattan. There are many stylish shops, unusual markets in the premises of former factories, cafes in the streets paved with stone. A colleague-American explained the success of Chelsea by the fact that at one time he was chosen by representatives of sexual minorities as a cheap district (factories like that). And since many of them are representatives of fashionable professions with a heightened sense of beauty and high demands on the environment, the area quickly turned from a factory backwater into a stylish place with lofts, installations and other attributes of high fashion. Needless to say that after all these changes, the Chelsea region has abruptly ceased to be cheap? One of the large-scale objects of culture and habitat of both tourists and local residents is the highline. (highline).
• The High Line is a former elevated subway line, which after its closure was turned into a walking street with green spaces and recreational areas - from benches to cozy corners under birch trees, observation decks and even a fair where conceptual New York artists sell their creations. By the way, this is what you can learn from the Americans - turn everything into places of worship and art objects.
• In the same area, Chelsea rises in the sky a new trendy area. Hudson Yards. This is a New York analogue of Moscow City, only with a larger number of skyscrapers, some of which are entirely residential, and some are entirely office buildings. Considering the fact that this is just some kind of New York among New York, the scale of the buildings is even difficult to imagine. The place promises to be stylish and even a little pretentious.
• For pacifying evening walks, the well-equipped embankment with countless piers extending into the black waters of the Hudson, where you can sit on the benches, admiring the view of the western part of Manhattan or Hoboken on the other side of the river, will be fine. The embankment is very long, half a day can be easily spent on a leisurely exploration of all local attractions and artistic installations.

One of the many installations on the western embankment. Photo from the personal archive of the author

The conclusion I made is that an incredible number of interesting places can be seen completely free of charge, and if you have at least one crumpled five-ruble note with the image of Grandfather Franklin lying around in your pocket and you can afford to buy a glass of coffee with the famous mermaid, then you will definitely be in euphoria from this place.

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