Goodbye, New York
On the image of NYC, the Frank Sinatra fallacy, artists as the minimum wage backbone, the so-called "leftists" of Barnard College and the city, and moving across the country back to Texas.
New York City attracts the gaze of the world, the wanna-be Wolf on Wall Street, the Brooklyn artist that never makes any art, and some of the strangest (and greatest) beings to grace this planet, but what festers beyond the rainbow painted neoliberalism is paycheck-to-paycheck poverty, a staggering wealth gap, and smothered dreams.
I moved to NYC to pursue my Bachelors at Barnard College of Columbia University, but the COVID-19 pandemic drastically shifted the image of the city from late nights at Cubbyhole and pseudo-intellectual debates to restlessness and C.diff coated takeout. Rather than network— which, let’s be real, the Ivy League practically exists for networking— I stayed pent up in my apartment and spiraled into the kind of depression that is only natural when isolating and oxytocin-less for months on end. This, along with my unwillingness to worm my way into “friendships” with the sons and daughters of the ultra-wealthy and uber-connected, led to a lacking of job offers, which funneled into freelancing, pet care, and a brief stint baristaing at a fine dining restaurant to stay afloat post-grad, but once you’re forced to hustle in NYC, the facade of the City of Lights fades fast.
There is a general assumption by the elite that minimum wage workers are dumb, or lazy, or didn’t strike when the iron was hot, but more often than not, they are disadvantaged, and beyond that, they are not the Gossip Girl trustfund babies that we all want to be. This is not to say that we wish to be bogged down by Upper East Side scandals and anonymous texters or be born with extremely punchable faces, but I think we’d prefer rumors and high-society drama over crippling medical debt, working numerous jobs, commuting for two+ hours a day, and being (indirectly) told that we are worthless beyond our labor, yet we still show up because we have to.
The average employee in NYC is unlike the Old Austin slacker that I once worked with in a nameless local grocery store of years past. [Note: the Old Austin slacker is dead. He’s been replaced by the Californian expectations of streamlined service and sterile coolness]. Most have (big) ambitions and talent. Most are artists of some sort, whether musicians, dancers, jewelry makers, poets, etc… Most will never see the fruits of their gifts beyond what they share in their immediate circle.
We see ourselves as the trapped actors of Synecdoche, New York (2008), running on a repetitive script, barely fed by our bosses, immobilized to a cage of four walls which we imagine breaking every-so-often for our main character moments, but they rarely come. Maybe you’ll get a cameo in a hot shot’s play or a feature in Law and Order: SVU or a line in a toothpaste commercial…someday. Until then, you’ll have to pray, and remain as the crumbling backbone of the city, serving the upper echelon brokers and strokers of Manhattan as you develop early onset arthritis from the double shifts and low nutrient density food you can barely afford.
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