Is New York Turning Into Los Angeles?

January 14, 2023 5:18 PM

Quintessentially Californian institutions are popping up all over Manhattan as New Yorkers embrace sound baths, mocktails and legal marijuana.

[can also access viaarchive.org]

posted by Ahmad Khani (36 comments total)

Here's all you ever need to refer to when people make this perennial clickbait article spring forth yet-a-fuckin-gain'

The difference between NYC and LA (by the late John Callahan)
posted by lalochezia at 5:24 PM on January 14, 2023 [33 favorites]

"Enter the wave of woo-woo."
posted by clavdivs at 5:32 PM on January 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Still no Zankou chicken in NY......
posted by brujita at 5:48 PM on January 14, 2023 [7 favorites]

"Enter the wave of woo-woo."
Should've cribbed that for the title…
posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:03 PM on January 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

A NYT article handwringing about how New York isn't like New York anymore? When do they start publishing nostalgia articles about the porn shops in Times Square that aren't there anymore?
posted by hippybear at 6:13 PM on January 14, 2023 [18 favorites]

New York and LA are in the process of slowly turning into each other, which is why LA now has a reasonable subway and there are jet ski gangs on the East River. I believe this has something to do with the magnetic inversion of the poles.
posted by phooky at 7:34 PM on January 14, 2023 [28 favorites]

The NY Times and other papers from "back east" regularly get roasted about articles like this. They are just so far from the reality of the megalopolis that is "Los Angeles" that the articles and writers have no basis in reality. "Downtown" LA or Santa Monica...is not "Los Angeles" any more than Central Park is NYC.
Go over to Whittier or Pico Rivera or freaking Lakewood and look around for a "sound bar". I can get you a decent burrito, though.
posted by pthomas745 at 7:38 PM on January 14, 2023 [9 favorites]

Is it handwringing? Sometimes ‘think pieces’ aren’t as serious as one may think.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 7:39 PM on January 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

The NY Times and other papers from "back east" regularly get roasted about articles like this. They are just so far from the reality of the megalopolis that is "Los Angeles" that the articles and writers have no basis in reality.

Lucas Kwan Peterson at the L.A. Times wrote this article about New York food which reads exactly like every New York Times article about Los Angeles.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:53 PM on January 14, 2023 [24 favorites]

The thing I found weird about Manhattan when I was there recently: there's a trend of covering the scaffolding in front of your restaurant or shop with plastic plants. Vines, big, gaudy flowers, you name it... all plastic. I know scaffolding has become a scourge of NYC but plastic plants? Really?
posted by SoberHighland at 8:53 PM on January 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

I just hope some day you'll be able to get a decent Westside-style bagel in New York.
posted by The Tensor at 10:56 PM on January 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

Damn I've lived in LA on and off for decades and I've never had a sound bath or a mocktail!!
posted by chaz at 11:03 PM on January 14, 2023 [2 favorites]

Damn, I guess I’m missing out on the quintessential LA experience by living all the way out here in eastern Queens
posted by bxvr at 4:56 AM on January 15, 2023

Lucas Kwan Peterson at the L.A. Times wrote this article about New York food which reads exactly like every New York Times article about Los Angeles.

Although just to be clear, that is an April Fool's Day article.
posted by jeremias at 5:19 AM on January 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Some New Yorker once said this regarding Times Square: "Low life is better than no life at all."
posted by DJZouke at 5:23 AM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

I just hope some day you'll be able to get a decent Westside-style bagel in New York.

siri what is shibboleth for crypto-vulerable people
posted by lalochezia at 5:29 AM on January 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

The difference between NYC and LA (by the late John Callahan)

This is accurate according to my experience living in NYC. Despite the cliche that New Yorkers are assholes, I found them to be the nicest people in the world. I think they have to be nice to one another because they're forces to live in such close proximity. (This is my theory about why cities tend to be blue and rural areas tend to be red.) I haven't lived in LA so I can't say whether the cartoon is accurate about Angelinos.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 5:40 AM on January 15, 2023 [10 favorites]

How many living palm trees stand outdoors in New York City?
posted by y2karl at 6:45 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Despite the cliche that New Yorkers are assholes, I found them to be the nicest people in the world. I think they have to be nice to one another because they're forces to live in such close proximity.

This is my theory. I don't know if it's that people are nicer than other places I've lived, but they are noticeably more helpful to strangers. Things like helping carry a stroller or someone's shopping out of the subway are, in some sense, self-serving--we're all going to get home faster if someone grabs the other end of the stroller, so it might as well be me. Then suddenly "do you want help" is a thing you can say to a stranger, so you might as well help carry the stroller down.
posted by hoyland at 7:31 AM on January 15, 2023 [11 favorites]

Lucas Kwan Peterson at the L.A. Times wrote this article about New York food which reads exactly like every New York Times article about Los Angeles.

Oh, that's just perfect. The NY Times writes articles in that exact style whenever they venture out to my city and pretty much anywhere west of the Hudson.
posted by octothorpe at 8:11 AM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Now that we've become bridge-and-tunnel trash enthusiastic suburbanites, I really, really WISH every good NYC restaurant had a mocktail program. It's a bummer to be spending a couple C's, watch the wife select her pre-dinner bespoke adult beverage, and end up saying "I'll stick with water for now, I guess." Gimme something interesting to drink.
posted by anhedonic at 9:14 AM on January 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Go over to Whittier or Pico Rivera or freaking Lakewood and look around for a "sound bar". I can get you a decent burrito, though.

They have sound baths in Whittier. I don't know about Lakewood, but there is a place that does sound baths in Downey.
posted by betweenthebars at 10:22 AM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

I can get you a decent burrito, though.

Easy access to decent burritos is one of the things I really miss about West Coast living. At least we have decent pizza.
posted by May Kasahara at 12:29 PM on January 15, 2023

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if there's a trove of articles out there about, I dunno, the Chicago-fication of New Orleans.
"I miss the old St. Louis, before it got taken over by insufferable former Denver-ites."
posted by bartleby at 2:45 PM on January 15, 2023 [6 favorites]

I see a lot of complaints about Californians and Brooklynites changing my city but that's mostly confined to the local Reddit sub and comments to newspaper articles about new apartment complexes.
posted by octothorpe at 3:15 PM on January 15, 2023

IDK but we have sound baths, mocktails, and medicinal marijuana in Cincinnati, so....
posted by cooker girl at 3:35 PM on January 15, 2023 [2 favorites]

Easy access to decent burritos is one of the things I really miss about West Coast living.

Good News, Everybody! The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel
posted by mikelieman at 4:37 PM on January 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

I dunno about the Chicago-fication of New Orleans but making fun of people who moved to New Orleans because they liked the idea of living in a party city, then start bitching about the noise and drunks when they ended up living a block away from a bar, is a constant sport. So's bitching about how the AirBNBs have made everyone's rent go up, even if you don't live next to a place regularly rented out by groups of noisy out-of-town idiots.
posted by egypturnash at 6:22 PM on January 15, 2023

That’d be fine with me if tacos would be made with two tortillas. Mexican food here is just not that good.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 6:36 PM on January 15, 2023

This reads like it was written 10 years ago. Fred Segal? Maer Roshen?
posted by Ideefixe at 6:59 PM on January 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Lucas Kwan Peterson at the L.A. Times wrote this article about New York food which reads exactly like every New York Times article about Los Angeles.

Useful background (which I posted here on the thread about that article at the time) : he used to write the NYT's "Frugal Traveler" feature.
posted by fedward at 8:07 PM on January 15, 2023

Native New Yorkers are a special breed. One of the traits I love most about them is their unflinching blunt delivery.
Cab driver to tourist woman driver stopped at a green light. "Lady, there is only one shade of green."
posted by DJZouke at 8:55 AM on January 16, 2023

Or as my father liked to say, "The light doesn't get any greener."
posted by friendlyjuan at 4:42 PM on January 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I dunno about the Chicago-fication of New Orleans but making fun of people who moved to New Orleans because they liked the idea of living in a party city

New Orleans lost almost half it's population during Hurricane Sandy, most of whom moved to Texas, so yes the Louisana-ification of Texas is a thing.

Also if more New Yorkers are eating dinner at 5:00pm and buying cars, it's good mocktails are trending, because that's a recipe for increased drunk driving. Also that might just be an indicator of aging. Same with having a shaman. Who can afford that and a car? Older people, who eat dinner at 5:00pm.

Things like helping carry a stroller or someone's shopping out of the subway are, in some sense, self-serving--we're all going to get home faster if someone grabs the other end of the stroller, so it might as well be me.

As a stroller-haver (well used to) who also travels a lot, people help with strollers everywhere. It's not specific to NYC (though NYC'ers are equally as nice about it).
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:55 AM on January 17, 2023

Next thing you know, they'll have small corner shops selling various items outside of NYC!
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:59 PM on January 17, 2023

I've been sober for 18 days and doing sobriety in the midwest (in the winter!) is hard.
I adore the zero proof menus and the mocktail bars in my city - they're perfect in every way.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:38 AM on January 18, 2023