Last night we went to visit friends in Hoboken and took the Path home at around midnight. We got off at the West 9th Street stop and proceeded to search for a cab in vain.
It was drizzling out and I didn't have high hopes - but Ben was with us so we didn't give up. Why was I surprised to see the streets filled with college students everywhere? Both the East and West Village - wall to wall kiddies.
Are there more students? How can there be? Do they just look different so you can spot them? Maybe. Or are they venturing farther off from their dorms because it's safer? That's part of it. But it seems the demographics have changed. These kids are rich kids - with no trace of a counter culture among the group. Very well dressed young people going out to spend a good deal of money.
I know this cultural shift is old news. Just humor me while I try to catch up. Sigh.
6 comments:
But it does make one wonder - where do all the cool people go who have been displaced in the shift?
Good question. I guess they become like cool diaspora and scatter themselves all over brooklyn, some parts of queens and even a litte bit of the bronx.
I'm kind of into the Bronx. It's like a whole new scarey frontier. Maybe that's where we'll end up.
In the East and West villages, youth will be served. That's why the atmosphere of St. Marks Place often seems so forced and contrived to me. Young people trying so hard to be different that they wind up looking the same. But I'm sure this has been said of younger generations since time immemorial. We can all think back to stuff we did when we were kids and have a good laugh. It's just that to me, so much of today's youth culture has an unmistakeable corporate stamp to it, like it was dreamed up and promoted by some Madison Avenue ham-and-egger. Kind of depressing...
Hey EVI,
This question is unrelated to this post, and I hope you don't mind: Can you tell me more about the writers' group to which you belong? What are the group's goals? Can you send me contact info? (If you want to reply by e-mail, just click on my profile on my blog -- clicking on the monkey picture in the top right corner will do it -- and then click on "e-mail me.")
Many thanks!!
Yeah, since you have to be rich to afford university these days all the students seem alike. Rich. Where are all the starving artistic freaks?
STATEN ISLAND! I will say no more...
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