Doom and Materialism in New York

Midterms aren’t the only impending doom we Columbians have to worry about.

According to leading economists, New York City, the economic capital of the world, is heaving its last breath; scholars in the field are seriously considering the possibility of the “utter annihilation” of the city, having unanimously agreed that New York will be hit worse than during the 1930s and now merely debating the degree to which we are all screwed. Apparently I didn’t get the memo­: Optimism is out, and pessimism is in. Everyone is scrambling to make the most dire predictions so as to say “I told you so!” when New York City finally goes under.

As I ponder the future of the city I have come to call home, I glance outside my dorm room window and seriously question the validity of these fire-and-brimstone predictions. Exhibit A: It’s well past midnight, and back home in sunny suburban south Florida, the strip malls have long been closed and the perfectly groomed palm trees stand solitarily in the night. Here in Manhattan, people are still walking up and down Broadway, apartment windows are lit, cabs are running, restaurants are open. Exhibit B: New York City is so ingrained in the national consciousness. It is a symbol of wealth and wishes, a permanent arena of glitter and goals. In south Florida and across the nation, millions of viewers tune in to watch Gossip Girl, passionately tracking the “scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” and flocking in droves to get the exact same headband Serena sported when she broke up with Dan, recession be damned. Yet being featured in prime time teenage soap operas does not a healthy city make. Could Gossip Girl be a sign not of a healthy, functioning city that remains near and dear to the American heart, but a symptom of the disease that could be the death of New York?

This new uncertainty surrounding the future of urban America is reminiscent of the tumult and decay of the 1960s and the cities that have never recovered. Detroit, once considered the Paris of the West, has effectively imploded upon itself—the center of American industrialism and technological greatness has sunk so deep since the 1967 race riots that urban farming is the one of the most lucrative professions. New York City, the ultimate city, has never been immune to economic hardships—recall the dark days of the 1970s when the NYSE fell, the population plummeted, and the city came to the brink of bankruptcy amidst waves of crime, murder, blackouts and a general Carteresque malaise that compelled many to diagnose New York as a hopeless case with one foot already in the grave.

But the city recovered—and with a vengeance—reoccupying our national consciousness every night as we tuned into silver screen. Think of the countless TV shows set in New York City over the past two-and-a-half decades that feature characters trying to achieve their dreams: young professionals coming to New York to make it big (Friends), older professionals enjoying their success (Seinfeld), and their gay best friends (Will and Grace), rising stars (Fame), neo-Bohemians (Rent), the career-obsessed suits they hate (The Apprentice), and perhaps most self-consciously, fabulous single women, flaunting their disposable income and witty repartee on their quest for love and the perfect shoes (Sex and the City). New York reemerged as the locus of hope and promise, much like it was for my great-great grandparents at the turn of the century who fled the poverty and pogroms of eastern Europe. But instead of yearning to be free, the new poor and huddled masses have settled only for being the next Carrie Bradshaw (or Samantha or Charlotte or Miranda, depending on hair color and level of sexual inhibition).

And now, apparently, it’s all over. Should we start reciting the kaddish? Looking again to TV as the litmus test of national consciousness, you would never know that the Great Depression, part two, is upon us. Over the past two years, the airwaves have been flooded with new shows featuring the rich and famous and their less fortunate counterparts who will trade a kidney and their dignity for a chance to have it all—Stylista, Cashmere Mafia, Lipstick Jungle, 90210, Privileged, The City, and once again, Gossip Girl.

That, the New York of Gossip Girl, is the site of the infection that threatens the health of the whole, the one bad Big Apple that ruins the whole barrel. To save the rest of New York, let us amputate this festering sore of materialism. The credit crisis is proof enough that keeping up with the Joneses is a lethal exercise in futility that brought the world market to its knees. If New York is to die, let it be the New York of Blair Waldorf and Bernie Madoff, of material gain for its own sake—the one that leaves us blindly groping for more, more, more.

I doubt that New York City will ever die. Much like the plucky heroines of beloved TV shows, New York has gotten itself out of sticky situations before, and will continue to be a magnet for talented, enterprising individuals from around the world. Yet if the jeremiads are right, pray for the death of the New York that has placed materialism on a pedestal and has the city running weary after shallow, heartless gains. Let us bury this New York, skip the mourning period, and move on to bigger and more productive concerns.

The author is a Barnard College first-year. She is an associate editorial page editor.