NYT Greatest City on Earth?

Working in 'the City' normally refers to London. Note that the definite article 'the' begins with a lower-case 't' while the 'C' in 'City' is upper-case.

But I'd agree with 35mmdelux: there are many 'great cities' including (from my own limited experience) London, Birmingham, York, Glasgow, Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Athens, Lisbon, Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Istanbul, Beijing... No doubt there are others but I'm not arrogant enough to pretend that I'm acquainted with all of them.

Tashi delek,

R.
 
Last edited:
FPjohn said:
Hello:
Sorry to have skewed the dialogue with the "?". What about the photos? Any opinions?

yours
FPJ
Click to expand...

No. Took forever to open, so I gave up.

But a good enough photographer should be able to make anywhere look like the greatest city on earth. Especially if it has a bit of history, like (for example) Mdina in Malta or Venice.

Cheers,

R.
 
The title confused me. Did you mean the New York Times (NYT) declared that New York was the greatest city on Earth? Or did you mean "NYC Greatest City on Earth?"

New York is an amazing city, and there are other equally amazing cities in the U.S. and around the globe.

I worked with a number of people whose career goal was to work in NYC, even if it meant living in a tiny efficiency for $1,000 a month or more.
 
Last edited:
The rest of the United States may hate New York, call it Sodom and Gomorra, damn its population with racial innuendos, chastise its position as the center of the financial world, but every two-bit politician running for dog catcher of Padookaville wants to get their photo at the site of the World Trade Center because they know that New York City with its frustrations, its sins, its diversity, its numbers, its dirt, its beauty, its opportunity, its disappointments, its plenty and its lack thereof, is America's best representation of itself and all its possibility. It simultaneously accepts and rejects all attempts at description or general statements about to its character. Whether or not it is the greatest city on the planet is a wasted discussion. It is what it is. Don't like it? Don't come visit. God knows there are plenty of people here already. But if you do come, please ask for freakin' directions from someone so you can stop blocking the sidewalk while looking at your map and I can get where I am going - which might be to the airport so I can go visit Paris or London or Tokyo or.....

Meanwhile, I think the Helen Levitt show is a nice little show. She is some kind of force. Never liked children very much by her own admission, but (and maybe because of that) she took great photos of them.

I also like that on any given day I can walk out the door of my apartment and go see 4 or 5 shows like these, shoot a couple rolls of film and have them developed by a top notch lab before I have to go home for dinner.
 
jke said:
every two-bit politician running for dog catcher of Padookaville wants to get their photo at the site of the World Trade Center
Click to expand...

Quote of the day?

New York seems ok. Manhattan is pretty straightforward: a big grid of numbered streets and avenues. Much harder to get lost than in London.
 
As Roger correctly mentioned, "the City" is an appellation given to a specific and smallish part of London, essentially the original Roman town.

In my experience, every large city that dominates a region is referred to as "the city" by that region's residents. As in: "Where are you going?" "I'm going into the city." Whether you are on the outskirts of New York, London, Paris, Toronto, San Francisco, etc., people know where you are going. Exceptions likely include such massive urban sprawls as Los Angeles which are collections of many municipalities among which the borders of the core city are invisible to most.
 
jke said:
The rest of the United States may hate New York, call it Sodom and Gomorra, damn its population with racial innuendos, chastise its position as the center of the financial world, but every two-bit politician running for dog catcher of Padookaville wants to get their photo at the site of the World Trade Center because they know that New York City with its frustrations, its sins, its diversity, its numbers, its dirt, its beauty, its opportunity, its disappointments, its plenty and its lack thereof, is America's best representation of itself and all its possibility. It simultaneously accepts and rejects all attempts at description or general statements about to its character. Whether or not it is the greatest city on the planet is a wasted discussion. It is what it is. Don't like it? Don't come visit. God knows there are plenty of people here already. But if you do come, please ask for freakin' directions from someone so you can stop blocking the sidewalk while looking at your map and I can get where I am going - which might be to the airport so I can go visit Paris or London or Tokyo or.....

Meanwhile, I think the Helen Levitt show is a nice little show. She is some kind of force. Never liked children very much by her own admission, but (and maybe because of that) she took great photos of them.

I also like that on any given day I can walk out the door of my apartment and go see 4 or 5 shows like these, shoot a couple rolls of film and have them developed by a top notch lab before I have to go home for dinner.
Click to expand...

Highlight: Quite.

Most inhabitants of Great Cities are absurdly parochial. You need to live outside a Great City to make realistic comparisons between them. And if you go to a Great City you need to live or stay inside it (I lived in Chelsea in the late 70s, and normally stay in the 3rd arrondissement in Paris when I visit) and not out in the bush.

Cheers,

R.
 
jke said:
The rest of the United States may hate New York
Click to expand...
Perhaps they do, but I will point out that they hate LA worse. In Ecology of Fear Mike Davis points out that LA is destroyed in novels and movies at a greater rate than anywhere else (he easily counted 136 destructions between 1920 and 1996 - a year when LA's on-screen destruction was way above a high average). And not only that, when other cities (such as New York) are destroyed, this is generally intended to horrify the audience. When LA gets destroyed the audience is usually supposed to cheer (and mostly does).

...Mike
 
Been there couple of times, had to keep moving my car, might give it another shot if I can find a place to park. Hear the subways are good. W. 70th and the Park, nice place to shoot people pictures.

Only people I heard calling it "The City" were New Yorkers who could not get into University there and had to settle for Western Reserve as a rest stop on the way to graduate school. Rest of New York State seems to think of it a bit differently.

Big Apple has some sort of historical origin, forgot what it was.

I find Prague very livable, as is Paris, especially like the 5th and 6th Arr. Prague may be ruined when the Euro arrives.

Most large cities have their pluses and minuses, some are more famous than others for a cold shoulder to outsiders as a religion.

Letterman seems to like it, but he gets paid to.

Regards, John
 
Might want to try visiting without a car, though there's actually a lot more available parking in Manhattan than most tourists realize (a lot depends on day of week & time of day, though, like most cities).

Origins of "Big Apple": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Apple

JohnTF said:
Been there couple of times, had to keep moving my car, might give it another shot if I can find a place to park.

. . .


Big Apple has some sort of historical origin, forgot what it was.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

P
New website in testing phase. Please comment on functionality etc.
Replies
13
Views
454
pmu
P
FPjohn
NYT Capa and Addario
Replies
0
Views
780
FPjohn
FPjohn
FPjohn
Bernd & Hilla Becher at the Met
Replies
6
Views
892
pyeh
P
FPjohn
NYT Richard Benson
Replies
0
Views
443
FPjohn
FPjohn
FPjohn
NYT RIP George Forss
Replies
2
Views
467
robert blu
robert blu
Back
Top Bottom