#26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)
January 26, 2008 by clander
Often times if you ask a white person about where to travel, you will get a lot of responses. But if you ask them about New York, white people will go nuts. They love the city universally and all either live there, have lived there, will live there or want to live there.
White people like New York because it has artists, restaurants, a subway, history, diversity, plays, and other white people. It literally has everything white people need to thrive! The only thing it’s missing is nature, but Central Park is right there, and since you are walking all the time, you are outside!
If you are from New York, tell this to a white person. They will instantly be interested in you “what part of New York? and you are really from there?” When they inevitably tell you about your home town (”I know this great italian place…”) you should respond by saying “man, I thought place was only known to New Yorkers.”
Another secret fact about white people, if you are in group setting and the topic of New York City comes up, find the highest ranking white person and say “oh, are you from New York?”
To them, this means you are calling them cultured, cool, and urban. They will respond with something like “oh, well, I’ve spent a lot of time there,” or “I lived there for three years.” You will have instantly become more popular than all other people in the group.
This is by far the best blog I’ve ever come across! I found it when trying to find something interesting for my Japanese students to read (I live in Japan!!). I am a vegetarian, I don’t watch the news, I don’t listen to mainstream music, I go to opera/classical performances 3 times a month, I eat organic food, I have a Reiki Master level attunement, and spend a lot of money on psionics, Ito Thermie and anything non-traditional. I have an undergraduate degree in Spanish. I have a doctorate in education, and so I guess that gives me permission to overanalyse things, and believe me, I do.
I have been to New York (my relatives live in Brooklyn). I do not like New York at all, and I believe that the city is grossly overrated and very dirty!!! Except for the MET Opera, the rest of it is caked in dirt. Gross!
By the way, I am not white (or American), but I was shocked at how accurately you’ve described my lifestyle, as those of some of my other friends.
Congratulations on a witty, insightful blog!!!
Anyone else see the Wear Sunscreen refences starting to appear?
This blog is rehashing comedy from the mid to late nineties for people who were too busy watching britney spears dancing to notice the brilliance.
http://www.tucc.org
I pooped my pants
in a world of chaos…you are an anchor of stability
screw you, NYC is not dirty you asshole. And it’s not freakin overrated….again, screw you.
i’m a native new yorker and a big snob about it because this city is awesome, but c’mon man, it’s filthy…
Yes, I would agree that white people love Manhattan
While on travel there recently, I went to every major and local drugstore in Midtown and I could not find hair grease of all things (not one single type or brand). I couldn’t even find a trial size. So I asked an African American girl working there where I could get hair grease. And she said go to the Jamaica neighborhood in Queens.
Oh so true, so true. I use the “I lived there for three years,” to fit in with white people. I am white, but I just want to move up.
I’ve lived here for 25 years and still don’t consider myself a “New Yorker” because I wasn’t born here. Thus these people who are all, “I’m a New Yorker; I’ve been here three months,” don’t impress me.
I’m white, and I lived in NYC for 3 years…i try not to tell people because it’s overrated. Go Philly. Go Baltimore.
Tourists and Kansas wanna-bes go to NYC…well, I guess they are all white.
Forget it.
I’m the whitest white here! I lived in New York for 30 years except for the years I spent living in London, the Algarve, and the South of France. How white is that!
Plus in New York I lived in a large studio 30 steps from the Met. Then in a carriage house in the Village. Then in a town house on the upper east side. Then in a loft in Tribeca below anybody knew there was a Tribeca. Then, finally, in a town house in Brooklyn Heights!
And now I live in an even whiter city: Seattle.
Am I white or what?
You didn’t mention having lived in Boston, so you’re close, but no super-honkey.
Your good Green. Boston is extra good because it pulls in the “i love minorities of all types thing that’s why i live in an area where there aren’t any”
vanderleun,
your mother must be proud.
We grew up in Connecticut, about 45 minutes from Manhattan. I was meeting my sister outside “The Garden” for a Paul McCartney concert (out-white that!). When she saw us, she exclaimed “Welcome to my city” with her arms outstretched. It had taken me a good 10 minutes to explain to her where the Garden was and how to get there. White people who don’t even know “the city” think they own it because they grew up nearby.
White people are ridiculous…to respond to “karma” above….saying nyc is overrated and philly and baltimore are better is going to be the new white thing….white people just need to stop being such snobs…like seriously stfu
Man, I love New York, I guess I’m that white. I’m Norwegian tho, so it’s more about experiencing such a large town.
stuffblackpeoplelike - eating watermelon! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike - pumping oil! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - gang warfare! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - eating beans! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike - shooting heroin! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - welfare! hahaha!!!
stuffjewishpeoplelike - keeping money! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike - eating rice! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike - kissing goats! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - sniffing glue! hahaha!!!
aren’t i funny and clever!!!
don’t you dare call me a racist!!!
No Anonymous, you’re not a racist. You’re an idiot.
New York is far from a “white city.” What are you people talking about?
I live in NYC, and you are absolutely right. NYC is owned and run by Jewish politicians; and then there is the rest, Harlem, Bronx, Spanish Harlem, ect. Not to mention the large influx of mexicans/ aka/illegals.
White People are a minority in NYC and I am one of them; I am reminded of my minority status everytime I walk out my door.
this is supposed to be a satire, this entire white people thing. i love it. its good to have fun, not be always so serious. im white too, nice to meet you! im born in new york &lived many years in boston. (i spent most of my life between both coasts. anything in the middle didnt exist). unfortunatly neither of those 2 cities are white any more. i think 65-70% black & “other” as they say. you dont even have to be technically white to have an elitist life style. just creativity, indivuality, upwardy mobile tastes, self esteem. many of the people i meet in new york are elitists from south america. most you do see are the workers. what about white trash??? theyre WHITE. thats why the title of this websight blog is strange. they would call us yuppies. remember the yuppie handbook? moving on: what about the white working class? they earn more in boston than many acedemics. some how they see eduated people as “rich people” w/chi chi tastes- not always true. its a class difference, its not economic, its social. back to your title “what white people like” its still very funny. matter of fact IM very proud to be white, & from new york. this politically correct thing young people have (&old time librals) lacks humor, creativity, & yes intelligence. thank you for letting me laugh again.
The fact that it is not a white city has no effect on white people liking it or not. For example, white people can still like black iPods.
Also I think you are taking this blog a little bit too seriously.
actually new york has something for everyone. it appeals to the “white” people for one reason & the other for their own reasons. a really super duper white place is like vermont, oregon, seattle. but new york has the sushi the pilates, the fashion industry etc. wall street. its great because one can cross all worlds. you an go direct to harlem, little india, china town, see a mosque, hear the koran. you can walk out of one world & experience another in minutes. rich poor, illegal, criminal, royalty. its all with second of each other. i like the kind of person who would choose new york!
I’m white and I was unimpressed with New York because it’s becoming too gentrified and too many white college kids. That was such a white person thing for me to say. Lame = me.
I heart NYC and I dont give a f****k who knows it!!
blow me mutherf*****fer!
I’ve lived in over a dozen cites, a handful of small towns, and couple of countries. I will one day live in Manhattan(it’s one of many on my list), but only for a year or two because it’s so expensive. I can’t wait!!
nyc really is white person paradise. i don’t like it really, but it is place to make money.
fuck baltimore and philly, give me the south where it is warm, cheap, and good.
Baltimore is pretty cheap. Not so much warm unless it’s summer and then it’s sweltering constantly.
Grew up in Brooklyn, bailed early. When I tell people, it can go two ways.
First way
Person: Where are you from?
Me: New York
Person: The city?
Me: Yeah, but not the good part. Brooklyn.
Person: I hear it’s very gentrified now.
Me: It wasn’t then.
Person: Why did you leave?
Me: I got sick of working two jobs to pay rent.
Person: Really? Such-and-such lives there and loves it.
Me: Yeah, well such-and-such probably moved there after getting a college degree and wasn’t earning a crap wage.
Person: Do you like the (Met/MOMA/insert other bullshit place)?
Me: Never went.
Person: How could you live in New York and not go to (bullshit place)?
Me: What of working two jobs to pay rent do you not get?
Person: Why are you so negative?
Second way
Person: Where are you from?
Me: New York.
Person: The city?
Me: Yes.
Person: Why did you leave?
Me: To get a different perspective.
Person: That’s great. I love New York.
Usually I opt for conversation 1. It’s easier.
THERE IS NEVER ANY ESCAPE.
IS THERE.
booyah, born in New York!
Dad a Transit Cop!
My cousin ran for Governor!
Moved to FL after my dad died!
Great-grandmother and grandmother came through Ellis Island!
this is the funniest blog I’ve read in a long time!
I’m about as white as an Irish-Italian New Yorker can get!
I’m neither white nor american. I’ve lived in NY (manhattan) since 93. Reason why I moved there instead of anywhere in the states is because there is a diverse ethnic population…. meaning much less white people…. I think generally immigrants are attracted to NY because at least there’ll be a neighborhood that makes them feel at home. NY’s more akin to cities outside of the states….
No, #9, #8 is a troll. Just do your part and ignore him.
Adding Brooklyn to the list is pointless. Brooklyn is wannabe. All the indie-turds in Williamsburg talk about their crap little burg on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER. If you want to live in NYC, it’s Manhattan or GTF home. Brooklyn was and always will be almost-New York. But not quite.
Ummm no - Manhattan is now where lawyers live. Brooklyn is much more what white people like - darling cafes, gentrification, dive bars, parks and dogs.
Manhattan is fully yuppie now.
Manhattan belongs to the super-rich
“The super-rich (0.9%) Multi-millionaires whose incomes commonly exceed $350,000; includes celebrities and powerful executives/politicians. Ivy League education common.”
Not yuppies but owners of yuppies.
Definitely. I notice that white people are overly impressed with themselves with the fact that they’re from New York. A white people/NY transplant thing to do is constantly talk about how they can’t get any good pizza. But Manhattan, and possible Portland is paradise for white people.
donna karen crime ridden rat city, big titty committee
I think that this may be one of those things that applies to northern white people and maybe some scenester southern lib kids.
this is so funny.. but yes, white people LOVEEEE Manhattan.. but lets be clear– different types of white people like different parts of Manhattan..
ie:
LES/Chelsea= Distressed Arsty or Musician Types
Midtown East/West= People w/money or the Yuppies whose parents pay their rent
Harlem/Morningside area= Columbia U students or those wanting to feel “cultured” til they realize they cant walk down Adam Clayton Powell Blvd past 7pm
Upper West/East Side= Stockbrokers or Lawyers that live in a loft or huge apt/condo overlooking Central Park
Washington Heights/Inwood= Italians or Jews that want to pay cheaper rent but still want to be close enough to the city
I live in NYC and I HATE the gentrification that’s going on (lol, i saw thats on the list too)
They go into our Bodegas and buy from the Black Muslim Street Vendors just for the “street cred” or to seem like they’re cultured.
Ugh.. and Im sooo pissed that Williamsburgh and other places in Brooklyn are getting taken over with all these American Yuppies..
I admit that in Brooklyn there are White people.. but theyre Ethnic Whites like Russian or Italian.. now all of these American dudes are moving in and DEMANDING that Starbucks get built on the corner so they can get their caffeine fix on the way to their job down on Water Street.
White people are always tryna take over other peoples land…
You note “they.” Who are “they?” And is they not you too even though you spell “tryna?” And when you say gentrification do you mean that from the 18th, 19th, 20th, or 21st century?
The city changes quickly doesn’t it.
White people from Chicago HATE New York and everything about it.
White people from Chicago have a crippling inferority complex about New York.
And I actually really like Chicago.
I’m from Chicago and I hate New York more than any other place in the world
Chicago who? Didn’t they have mobsters there back in the day or something?
Just read this whole site in one sitting. Fantastic stuff. What makes it so hilarious for me is how they take it beyond just observing ridiculous “white” (or liberal or yuppie or whatever) trends and give examples of how to profit from them. I’m a sucker for that brand of subtle social warfare, which probably explains why I love Gossip Girl so much. For these reasons, this is my favorite entry. The part about finding the “highest ranking” white person in the room and asking if they’re from New York had me in stitches. It’s so true of “intellectuals” who are self-conscious about living in second-rate cities like Hartford, where I’m from. Also love the Montenegro bit in the Architecture post. Keep up the good work!
I’m a white (of Spanish descent, not “Anglo”
Cuban-American originally from Washington Heights in Manhattan, and I actually WELCOME the ever-growing amount of gentrification the neighborhood’s been seeing over the past decade! It’s a MUCH better alternative to the Dominican ghettofication the neighborhood saw in the ’70s and ’80s (the decades I lived there), which it’s still recovering from.
You know things are changing there when you see a Starbuck’s on 181st Street, and you get artists such as Bjork, The Black Crowes, and Iggy Pop playing at the old Lowe’s Theatre/Reverend Ike Church (now also known as The United Palace) on the corner of 175th Street and Broadway — right across from where I grew up!
What does this all mean? Cleaner streets and buildings, less noise (disgusting merengue music, mainly), less violent crime, less drugs, and less theft.
Not to mention less Caribbean half-breed guys in ultra-baggy pants saying “iight” and walking around with hair in corn-rows, or their female counterparts walking around with too much makeup, giant earrings, processed nappy hair spackled back, and pushing a baby stroller before the age of 18!! 
Sorry to break it to you “white” Cuban girl. If your not white American you are just another “Hispanic Girl on welfare” to the white folks, iight!!
Go back to your “Island”. Oh that’s right, you can’t!!!!!!!!!!
for real…i’m sick of you “white” latinos, get off your high horse and join us in the real world, you might actually enjoy life if you weren’t so self-loathing.
Wow, Nefty…what a breath of fresh air you are…not.
Unless they’re from Boston. If you ask a white person from Boston if they’re from New York, they will be horribly insulted and hate you a little bit. Or just laugh at you. But probably both.
@ Pebbles
I’m from Boston and, I must say, I would be so horribly offended that I would engage this hypothetical fiend in fisticuffs. Not only would I hate this person (much more than a little bit) I might even get so mad that I gather a group of other white people from Boston and flip another white person’s car onto its side.
but no one from new york would ever mistake a bostonian for one of us, so don’t worry!
As a New Yorker born and bred, there’s nothing more annoying that some clown from out of town who decided it would be hip and happening to live in NYC. Throughout my adult life, I’ve been dragged to a number of parties filled with these wanna-be hipster swells who have recently moved here from some God forsaken white-bread East Bumfug jerkwater burgh located somewhere out in Yenemsvelt. I’ll get cornered into conversation with one of them, usually some goyishe moron with a soul patch and steak knife cut hair, while the girl who dragged me to this party in the first place is busy off somewhere cackling it up with some other yentas.
Inevitably, he’ll always turn the conversation to “The City”.
Hipster Moron Swell: So dude, how long have you been living in New York City?
Me: Uh, my whole life. Schmuck, ya t’ink I got dis accent from growin’ up in Keokuk?
Swell: Wow! You been here you’re whole life? You are sooooo lucky. I wish I grew up here. My home town was so repressed and conservative. Not like it is here.
Me: Yeah, sure. Careful what you wish for, son.
Swell: Where in the city are you from?
Me: Da Bronx.
Swell: Where’s that? In Brooklyn?
Me: No. It’s the Bronx, you idiot. You know where Yankee Stadium is?
Swell: You grew up near Yankee Stadium?
Me: (laughing) Gees, no. God forbid! When I was a kid and didn’t know any better I wanted to ’cause I’m a Yankee fan, and I thought it would be cool. I mean, I still go to ball-games there all da time, but hey. Y’know, it’s a great place to visit but…
Swell: (interrupting before I could go into how my grandfather had an aunt who lived in Concourse Village with a view of the Stadium from her window) I don’t like the Yankees. I like the Mets [or Cubs or Red Sux].
Bibbity-bop, bibbiity-boop, and so on. The conversation usually degenerates from there, and I think to myself “I the next girl I date is gonna one who DOESN’T drag me to these types of parties with these type of dooshbags.” It’s enough to make wanna move upstate or to the burbs like the rest of my family did.
PS. Boston Sux!
That post is so true. I grew up in New York and loved growing up there, but have lived many other place since then. And while at one time I enjoyed any discussion involving New York or any questions directed at me because I was from there I have gotten so sick of it. New York is fetishized like nowhere else in the world I can think of. Being from there is like being married to a prostitute. You have an intimate knowledge and attachment to something that everyone else is attracted to, and you can get it for free whenever you want but everyone else can get it if they pay for it. And though she’s good at what she does, ultimately she’s a whore and who wants a whore for a wife, especially one who supports herself by fucking 20-something transplants who desperately want to be famous and can’t wait to namedrop celebrities like BJ Novak and say they were at the trendiest spot in the LES last night. Karma’s right. Philly and Baltimore are cooler and way grittier. New York is a sterile, corporate echo of what it was in its chaotic heyday during the seventies and eighties, but I guess that’s how the Williamsburgers like it.
Yes, let’s glorify a city when it was a fucking shithole, responsible for 2400 murders a year.
There’s nothing cool about living where it’s dangerous. There’s nothing cool about overcrowding or rats.
If those are what makes a city cool and edgy- move to the shithole outskirts of some Latin American city or any African metro area.
If safety and cleanliness are corporate and soulless, then let everywhere be consumed by soulless corporations.
I’m so tired of hearing about this city or that city. The only thing truely interesting about New York is the accents of each burrough; only in New York could you crowd millions into a small city and have them be so clicky that not every one sounds the same. The best thing about New York left 50 years ago, and they wore “dodgers” on the uniform.
“2400 murders a year”??? Where the hell do you get your information? Last year there were just over 500 murders (can’t remember the exact number). I’m not saying that isn’t high, but there are 8.5 million people living in the five boroughs alone. Thus, the percentage is quite low for a country plagued by gun violence.
New York has been deemed the safest large city in the U.S. for several years in a row. That’s hardly living “where it’s dangerous”. Get a clue.
He’s talking about back in the 70s when everyone was fleeing NYC because it had so much violence. That’s when his figures are from. Read a comment before you respond, yo!
I was born and grew up in Brooklyn; lived there until I was 14. Moved out 2 weeks before the ‘77 blackout where all the stores were looted and my neighborhood which was in decline (Flatbush) was trashed and never recovered. I moved to NH (culture shock!) and thought the locals were such boobs and I was so cool because I was from NY, but I see now they were the cooler ones and I was the douchebag.
Fast forward, and I now live in NJ (the 5th Circle of Hell, to hipster/yuppified/”cultured” New Yorkers like the one Bronx Boy described - even worse than Queens). You mention you live in NJ to a NY hipster, especially a poseur transplant, and you become socially radioactive (unless you live in Hoboken, and even then you’re still a second-class citizen). That very thing happened to me — I was at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory (pretty good ice cream if you’re in the neighborhood) a few years ago and struck up a conversation with a couple of girls in line in front of me. They were from Ohio and talking about their fab condo/apartment in the LES. The minute I said I lived in NJ I ceased to exist. I thought it was funny because I was more NY than they would ever be.
OT — Do not interpret this as a defense of NJ. NJ used to be nice; it’s trashed now (at least northern NJ) and is starting to deserve its reputation. Some hipsters/yups fled NY after 9/11 and established beachheads here (Montclair, Westfield - white people love Victorian houses, and those towns are chock full). Almost everyone I know is fleeing the state, usually to Charlotte or Atlanta.
Cubedweller, you’re a gutless wonder. You sound like some kinda hippe love child. You certainly are a douchebag, but not because you’re from Flatbush, but because you and your family left (probably lived above a store!). Now houses in the neighborhood cost in excess of a million dollars and folks are getting rich cashing in on the yuppie horde moving down from the Slope.
The worst part is I probably knew you, or at least went to school with you.. Rather than fight for your neighborhood against redlinning and all the outside ills and influences you abandoned it. At least the old line blacks and the *good* whites who stayed can reap the benefits and retire in good wealth or pass those great homes to their children who live mortgage free in million dollar homes their parent paid $5 to 14 grand for.
I believe we get the last laugh!
Oh, and to set the story straight, the ONLY place in Flatbush that suffered looting during the blackout was the car dealer on the corner of Empire and Washington.
You white people who ran like rats from a sinking ship disgust me.
Now, if you said you ran during the crack days of the 80s, I’d appreciate that more, as so did we and most American born blacks of means. By that time we had moved a couple blocks from the Junction (technically still Flatbush). We ran to sunny Flordia leaving our white neighbors behind. Good people, three generations living in the home they were born to, which their grand- and great grand-parents built. True Brooklynites through and through.
You and yours on the other hand….
I blame you and yours, along with the scumbag Mayor Koch and the rest of the politicians you white people elected and controlled. Koch and his ilk and the white people of NY did NOTHING while the city descended into chaos resulting from redlinning, drugs, and crime.
Did you all know that during those days Police were forbidden to enter know drug locations, nor to effect arrest when observing drug transactions for fear of the police becoming corrupted!!! Only in New York.
Thank goodness for the good mayor Guiliani!
Now that the onset recession has begun, this is one non-white NYer who can’t white for the real NY to stand up and wack your asses back to Nowhere, Neverwannabethere America.
Manhattan is way overrated. But if you are 18 to 40 and single are you really going to find interesting neighbors and friends in oh I don’t know Forest Hills for example? There are good reasons why people pay $3000 for a studio. When you decide to buy something, you are paying what it is worth.
Another post aimed only at American white people. You could not pay me to live in New York.
this blog is a riot! but I should point out that among the people who follow all these habits in this blog, there’s a significant segment that go for the uber-hip smaller towns like Ashland, OR and Charlottesville, VA. There you’ll find folks who do all the things this blog describes, and, of course, they’re all convinced of their thorough uniqueness. Breakfast places, bicycles, ironic t-shirts, condescending attitude toward the Midwest/Red States, it’s all there, PLUS the self-congratulation they feel for shunning the ‘big city’
great job - keep up the fine work!
I live in one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Brooklyn (and thus, in the world)…in an apartment with 3 white people. Huzzah.
I am a person of color from California who recently moved to NYC, thinking it would be “diverse”. Whoa. Way wrong. All the pretentious white people here make me want to go home.
P.S. you should add “accupuncture” and “hating parents” to your list.