I Think Some Of These People Need To Have Their Head Checked

recently i have been reading a lot of stories about nostalgia for the "old new york", the new york of the '70s and '80s when the city was bankrupt, dirty, and unsafe. to those people i say this: are you fucking nuts?

read this quote from alison:

“I remember, there was just this fear,” Alison said. “I remember having to carry mugging money—$5. I remember having to know where all the Safe Haven stuff was. I remember all the bus ads with Etan Patz. There was just this fear, this fear of home, and I remember being really scared of the city.”

alison, sweetie, are you serious? you miss the days when muggers would mug a kid? and you take some sort of pride in that you had to carry "mugging money" to cover that eventuality? get real! who the hell wants to live in a city where they constantly feel scared, let alone feels nostalgic about it?

now, i do understand where some of these people are coming from. new york today, especially manhattan, is becoming the worlds largest playground for the rich. this i get (ironically, its one of the reasons i want to move to new york even though i am far from rich, but i digress), but to actually miss the daily threat of physical violence, flashings, public urination, junkies, dirty buildings, and everything else seems a little misplaced. you can miss the grittiness of the old new york, but you have to acknowledge that the city is something to behold these days.

but, if these people REALLY do miss the old new york, i suggest they move a close 90 miles down i-95 to philadelphia. we still know how to kill people at an astonishing rate there!