Welcome to New York

From Sultan Knish:

Do you miss the old New York City? Remember when subway trains were covered in graffiti, a news hour began with six shootings and everyone who lived in the city had been mugged at least once?

Remember when Times Square had more strip clubs than theaters and when you could afford an apartment in the village because it was a drug infested mess? 

Remember when the city and everyone living in it were on the verge of bankruptcy and the only people who had money lived upstate or in a small cluster of Manhattan?

Remember when everything was grimy and had a layer of filth, when people moved to the city because they wanted to slum, when nothing worked and no one cared and the only difference between New York and Chicago was that it had taller buildings?

If you miss that classic New York, there's good news because Bill de Blasio is bringing it back.

The muggers are coming back. The squeegee men are coming back. The crazy people randomly stabbing you on the subway, the gangs shooting each other over turf, the race rioters marching through neighborhoods and shouting, "Whose streets, our streets"-- they're all coming back.

Because the polls have spoken. And it's De Blasio time now. 

No more fascist cops hassling "innocent" people. Bill de Blasio won't put up with any of that. De Blasio will put the cops in their place, inside a Dunkin Donuts and away from people. They'll still get paid. They're in a union. They just won't lift a finger to help you because they'll have more special monitors and civilian complaint review boards on their necks than they can handle.

And next time one of the innocent victims of Stop and Frisk is pounding your face into the sidewalk with one hand while digging through your pockets with the other, wave to the pair of beat cops sitting in the window of the coffee shop. And they'll wave back without getting up. Because you voted for this. And you're getting what you deserve.

When you recover from your medically induced coma, you'll have a hell of a story to tell between reconstructive surgery visits. You might be tempted to complain about how the police don't do anything anymore and how we pay them a ton of money and they don't do anything except rope off a crime scene.

But don't. You don't want to sound like one of those crazy right winger types carrying guns on the 3 train waiting to go all Bernhard Goetz on some street kid. It's De Blasio time. It's what you voted for. 

All those cops ruined the special spirit of the city. The one where you could see someone lying in a  pool of their own blood on the A train on the way to work and you shrugged and moved on. The one where every weekend began with more bodies than an entire season of Law and Order.

It'll be exciting. Remember when people thought you were risking your life by living in the city. Now they will again. 

Relatives will look at the latest body count and gasp admiringly. "How can you live there?" And you'll stow your illegal can of mace in your pocket, your rape whistle on your key chain and all the apps on your phone that directly contact the FBI, the NYPD and Interpol and shrug manfully. "It's no big deal. I haven't even been mugged in six months."

Remember when all those gentrified neighborhoods full of artisanal bake shops were places that no taxi driver would take you?

Remember when the Mac repair shop, the experimental art gallery and the fusion Mexican-Thai place across the street were a dirty bodega with bulletproof windows, a street pentecostal church with steel bars and a healthy dose of voodoo and a burnt out abandoned building?

They will be again. The fusion place will move to Portland. The Mac guy will close up shop and go to work at a Best Buy in Westchester. He'll hate it, but after the third robbery, his insurance rates will be too high to stay on. But he'll have nothing to complain about. He voted for De Blasio too.

And that experimental art gallery, the one with collages of world leaders made out of broken glass as a statement against capitalism? It's a burnt out abandoned building again. The owner who used to want 10 million bucks for the building would give it to you in exchange for paying the tax bill. But you won't take it.

You voted for De Blasio, but you're not that stupid. No one buys real estate in De Blasio time.

A lot of the new amenities of the city that you love will still be around. Like bike lanes. There will be more of them than ever.

Muggers will love the bike lanes. They'll stand behind phone booths with a hockey stick. The stick will go out at the last minute, the bike rider will tumble off his 400 dollar toy and the stick will come down on his head.

You don't ride a bike anymore. No one really does except Chinese food deliverymen. You take the subway. It's dirty and grimy. It's covered in graffiti. And sometimes you remember when there were shiny new Japanese trains and you could ride them at 1 AM, without worrying about being attacked.

You remember riding your Citibike to a party past row after row of brand new restaurants and clubs. But that was a different city. That was Giuliani's New York and Bloomberg's New York. It's De Blasio's New York now. It's the old Dinkins New York. And no one does those things now. 

Citibike will be gone. Of course. The whole thing was a program to advertise Citibank to the city's booming upscale white population. And on De Blasio time, a lot of that population is leaving. And New York City on De Blasio time is not a brand that any major corporation wants to be associated with.

Giuliani New York and Bloomberg New York were booming cities. De Blasio New York is a place where the mayor gives constant press conferences about gang violence and announces new rape prevention programs. Every news story about the city now begins with, "Four people were shot in New York over the weekend" and "A fire swept out of control through Brooklyn destroying four city blocks. Police suspect arson." 

But that's cool. Who needs those stupid corporations anyway when Occupy Wall Street has a dozen encampments. A lot of those encampments are really homeless tent cities. But that's a good thing.

Central Park may now be scarier than ever and no one goes there after dark except muggers and cruisers. Columbus Circle is now a mess of shacks. But maybe the crazy guy who sleeps with a large butcher knife on the stairs in front of your building might decide to go there.

You nervously slip him a fiver every morning, but you hear him muttering every time he takes the money and you know he doesn't like you. One time he told the lady who lives next door to you that he's going to stab her. Everyone in the building has complained to the police.

But what can they do? It's De Blasio time. 

Read the rest here.