My office moved a couple of weeks ago to midtown Manhattan. 57th and Park, to be exact. We used to be located in Union Square – easily one of the coolest neighborhoods in NYC.
I really, really miss Union Square.
To make matters worse, I haven’t been in the office much since we moved, due to trade shows and a vacation. So this was my first full week in the new place. I walked around a bit during the day to try and find a groove, I really did. This neighborhood is just plain different. It’s great if you’re into shopping, but I’m not really into shopping.
I’ve seen more fur coats in the last week than I have in the last 5 years. True. One afternoon, a colleague and I left the building together and were walking south on Park Avenue. As we crossed 57th Street, a woman cut in front of us and walked ahead of us. Both of us stopped walking, because she had just the most amazing perfectly sculpted body and a fairly expensive outfit. We stopped, and I said to my colleague, “She has a lot more money than we do,” and my colleague replied, without skipping a beat, “no, she has a lot more TIME than we do,” which was more true, and certainly funnier.
Union Square had its own backbeat. It had a rhythm. I can’t find a rhythm yet uptown. The people are more self-absorbed. There are no trees. The stores are snottier. There are no protests or crazy events going on uptown.
I can’t feel the city uptown. I’m trying, I really am, and I’ll continue to try.
I’m testing various parking garages, because I still drive to work way too often (cause I still work late way too often). I can’t even write down the amount that one garage charged me to park for the day. It’s too embarrassing. But that’s been an interesting wake-up call for me.
Everything costs more uptown. But we don’t talk about it. Down in Union Square, if you felt like someone was robbing you, you’d tell him/her, and half the store would get involved in the discussion. Uptown, we just get robbed and meekly hand over our money.
I hate the whole scene. What a difference 40 blocks makes. I’m going to keep trying to get my groove back, though. I know it’s there somewhere.



