Darkness at Gotham
New contributor Kat Kensington will be blogging from her lofty perch in New York for as long as she can afford the rent. Counting our blessings, we have our health. We have our friends. We still have our ability to see a world in a grain of sand. (No? Well, maybe some of us.) And yet [...]
New contributor Kat Kensington will be blogging from her lofty perch in New York for as long as she can afford the rent.
Counting our blessings, we have our health. We have our friends. We still have our ability to see a world in a grain of sand. (No? Well, maybe some of us.) And yet the financial turmoil of households, institutions and governments everywhere is causing personal anxiety of very public proportions.
The British government, facing an equally stressed-out population in the days leading up to World War II, did what governments did in those days: they issued some some bold-faced propaganda. Intended as a message from King George VI to his people, Keep Calm and Carry On was designed to keep those famously stiff upper lips from quivering so damn much. Over the past few years the resurrected poster has been knocked off in cheerful candy colours, developing a bit of a cult following in trendy design circles.
Last November I spotted a framed version at a luxe furnishings shop in SoHo. In light of my dwindling disposable income, the $295 USD price tag held me back. Obviously for the best, since several editions around the walls of the shop have not had the desired effect of carrying on for the boutique’s owners. In the face of a sad Christmas season followed by February—which is annually the cruelest month for retail sales—the store is closing. The elegantly framed poster can now be yours for a mere $118 USD.
It’s dark here in Gotham. The Village Voice just reported 30 restaurant closings in February. Those are just the ones at which villagers would consider eating. “Closed for renovations” has become a euphemism for “not yet willing to admit closed forever” and nobody has paid full-price in this city for anything since early December.
How are you, people greet each other. Seems normal, but it isn’t. The standard greeting is suddenly imbued with new meaning. No really, how are you? How are you affected by all this, do you still have a job? A macabre cloud of black humour hangs over Friday after-work gatherings for drinks. It’s hard not to be freaked out by this.
New York has always been aspirational. You know how it goes: If you can make it here you can make it anywhere. The lure of limitless possibility, the sense as you walk down the street of what your life could be. Live here for awhile and you can spot it in others; you see the glowing, upturned face of a tourist and you know he’s thinking about moving here one day. New New Yorkers are facing their biggest test yet, but those of us who came here and are now struggling to pay the rent are reminded that New Yorkers have always struggled to pay the rent.
To be a New Yorker is to be resilient. As a story in New York magazine last spring put it, “This is exhilarating. This is exhausting. This is what New York is all about.”
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Category: Financial Crisis 2008
Cool, Kat. I’ll respond in kind.
Like any other catastrophe, the global financial mess will likely turn out to be a blessing for many writers. The recession/depression of 08 & beyond will probably become, for the literary crowd, what George W. Bush was to the comedic arts in the eight years previous — a never-ending supply of inspiration.
What amuses me most is the range of predictions from the world’s
economic brain trust. Without a scintilla of shame over their previous lack of warning or foresight, we now hear that the current mess will either be over by autumn or perhaps last a decade or so, and become known as the Great Depression #2. Or something in between. Does anyone really know what’s going on?
I guess no one ever claimed that economics was an exact science, at least not recently. You know the old adage, “If you lined up all the world’s economists head-to-toe, they would never reach a conclusion”. Not an exact science indeed. And most emphatically not an art. More like voodoo.
And that of course explains why any fool can join the game armed only with a website and an opinion or two. What’s worse is that the fool, as a financial predictor, stands at least an even chance of beating the pants off a PhD in Economics. When he does, he may quickly reach web oracle status (usually self-proclaimed) and get
very rich selling subscriptions to his financial newsletter; publish a
book perhaps, on how to survive the financial armageddon coming soon to a planet near you. Yikes.
I keep thinking of Marvin Gaye. “Mother, mother …”.
I was in New York this week for the first time in a long time, and i have never seen the city as depressed or as depressing (except of course when i went there in the late 80’s early 90’s and it was a post apocalyptic wasteland before Guliani cleaned it up)…in any event the signs were everywhere, a TV add i saw was selling business suits for $199, but if you loose your job, you get to keep the suit but get your money back.
The client’s office I attended was 75% empty, with name plates of former employees still on the doors. This was a once proud company with a market capitalization measured in the 10’s of billions, rather that the few hundred million it is today.
The most depressing part may in fact have been watching the news last week, with the lead story being the AIG bonuses. The US Congress has become a complete disgrace, with most of their reactions to public outrage ranging from out and out pandering to just plain idiocy. The US is a country of laws, these are legitimate contracts, the government cant abrogate them, just because these people happen to be unpopular.