The NEW New York

I liek the new subway cars so that have aunnocements you can actually understand.

I despise the pedestrian malls.

The Highline!!!!
Washington Square Park's renovation!!!!

>I liek the new subway cars so that have aunnocements you can actually understand.

Agree.
Helps also cut down on the unnecessary conductor and save $$.

what about your doorknobs?

door knobs!!!!!!!

"Helps also cut down on the unnecessary conductor and save $$."

What does one have to do without the other. The doors on the new trains do NOT operate themselves. A lot of people think they do, but they do not.

I'm joking with you Socialist. I think we talked about this before - I'm in favor of 2 employees on the train.

Who has special doorknobs?

I do know at least one person with a window in the shower.

Grand Central Terminal is cleaner and nicer than it was in 1981.

The subway is also much cleaner and safer than it used to be (and it wasn't too long ago that NONE of the cars were air-conditioned!). I like being able to save a lot of money with an unlimited MetroCard, but I still miss tokens, as the machines are often out of order, the card-scanners are dirty and don't always work, and it's always a fucking surprise when your unlimited MetroCard is expired (usually as you're rushing to catch an arriving train). With tokens, you KNEW you'd always get in, since you had a token!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the digital signs and announcements of how far away the next arriving trains are.

Whole Foods is DEFINITELY a step up from the ratty Gristedes and A&P's we were stuck with, and it's really not THAT much more expensive (and in many cases, cheaper than Gristedes). PLUS they carry a whole universe of organic and gourmet items that most of us never would have had access to.

FreshDirect is the best thing EVER to happen to grocery shopping. But I really miss UrbanFetch.

The TLC has done a good job of cleaning up the cabs, with forcing cabbies to keep them clean, passing a taxi rider's bill of rights, and now imposing a dress code on cabbies.

>the card-scanners are dirty and don't always work,

The card scanners work just fine. You just have to have the right New Yorker touch and treat her right. Surely you know how to do that?

Actually they don't work "just fine". At many stations they're dirty and not well-maintained.

Are you talking about in Manhattan?

"The Highline!!!!"

Can someone please explain the big fascination with an elevated sidewalk to nowhere that's loaded with overgrown weeds?

How could I forget COSTCO? Never again will I pay $3 for an anemic roll of 14 count paper towels. Even if I do have to schlepp out to Queens, it's worth it.

And easy to get there with Zipcars.

I love Zipcars, they are awesome. Someone else can pay for parking the thing when I'm not using it. Be sure you take damage pics, though, and send them to the main office via your cellphone, before you drive off with it. Just to be sure the kids that run place don't try a little "old New York" stuff and charge you for someone else's damage.

@MATT: I don't get the high line either.

>try a little "old New York" stuff

As an "old" and native New Yorker, I don't know what you are talking about.

(Duh! Of course, doorknobs and bathroom windows...but that is only new for ME in NY)
Trader Joe's
Grey Dog
OK Cigars
Bergdorf Goodman Men
Walking by Hollister because it stinks in a funny way and for the ballsiness of a retailer to just skip all the b.s. and just put naked men out front to lure people in (those who aren't uptown shopping at Bergdorf)
Not getting mugged on the way to a Broadway theatre (or pretty much anywhere any more)
Lots of French Bulldogs all over.
MoMa
The Martha's Vineyard Friday/Monday ferry service
New buildings at ground zero instead of holes that make me cry

Why are you smoking cigars kyle? I don't want to pay for your lung cancer treatment when your on Medicare.

"As an "old" and native New Yorker, I don't know what you are talking about."

you're old? wow i was way off

kw, a&f does exactly the same thing a short distance from bergdorf. and last i saw hollister was planning a midtown location as well, don't know if it opened yet. the soho branch is hell, even worse than the a&f in midtown.

needsadvice, most of the starbucks seem to have closed their bathrooms to the public. with the shuttering of the book stores, this may become a bigger issue.

trader joe's yes, and the general ability to find decent food, including a huge shout out to the fruit/veg carts that are all over the city now.

The Highline is beautiful! They took a dilapidated old train trestle and transformed it into a floating garden. Anytime you can carve out green space in this concrete jungle, it's a very good thing on so many different levels.

Madison Square Park and it's Green Market.

Hollister IS A&F ... it's their even trashier sub-brand. But the flagship A&F is still the funniest place in all of Manhattan, because of everything else plus the Mark Beard murals. Wear industrial-strength earplugs.

Anyway, I never much liked anything in old New York, and I certainly don't like anything about new New York. I guess it's okeh for the tourists & permatourists, though.

Alan...Saw Nir Hod exhibit yesterday. I still think they all took inspiration from you.

Bad:
a giant Duane Read on every corner that's not taken by some other big box "drug" chain. They seem to have replaced the Woolworth, don't they, selling the same shit in all chains and somehow surviving.
But dear god, I hate Duane Read.

Un-greyed Socialist by mistake. Never again.

* Hudson River Park
* streeteasy.com -- makes buying an apartment in NYC a lot easier!
* CVS - forced Duane Reade to clean up its act and I love their discount/reward program.

Salut: "selling the same shit in all chains and somehow surviving."

They didn't survive, they were bought out by Walgreens. I'm hoping that they eventually convert them to Walgreens, whose prices are much lower than DR.