<p>Ok Donna, that makes more sense. Personally, I think it is great there are New Yorkers are rich and trying to get richer. It is the rich who are paying all the income taxes and we need more rich people.</p>
<p>I think the ethnic group DonnaL is talking about is Jews. Yeah, I’ve experienced the generalizations too. Jews care only about money. Jews rule New York. New York is ‘jewtown’. I agree that barron may not mean that, but the general perception is out there, and is way off the mark. I work in New York and I have worked in other parts of the country including out on the west coast, and I have to say that New Yorkers are among the most friendly and caring people to interact with. There are too many negative stereotypes out there.</p>
<p>Hey, New York has more of everything, including rich people and shallow people. Like a lot of other things, it has enough rich, shallow people to achieve a critical mass of absurdity, as we see in the article. It’s the same with fashion trendy people, criminals, artists, gay people, musicians, you name it–the excesses of any group (good or bad) are on easy display in New York. To me, that’s part of what makes the city so great.</p>
<p>Not intending to go O-T, but do Jews consider themselves as belonging to an ethnic group rather than a religion? I always thought that there were many ethnic groups within Jewish communities, as in most religions.</p>
<p>x90 - I totally agree with you.<br>
Actually, I think the article was poorly written…and unbelievable. Do you really anyone whose net worth has dropped from $20m to $8m really stretches their hair appointments from 6 weeks to 8 weeks? C’mon.
To be fair, DonnaL, I really didn’t read any undertone or implied reference to any ethnic group. Where do you see that?</p>
<p>Sigh. I just said I never said I saw that implication in the article!</p>
<p>The head of my NY based company was an Italian guy. There are enough obnoxious New Yorkers to include all groups in my book.</p>
<p>(Said in his best Jonnie Walnuts voice)</p>
<p>"So, Barrons, is it? You got a problem wid us Eye-talian New Yorkers? What’s you beef, you re-taahd! Forghedabowdit! I’ll knock you so far from here to Sunday your grandkids will be born wid bruises!</p>
<p>Hey, Rocco. Show this gentlemen what we New Yorkers think about his opinion!"</p>
<p>Of course, I kid… :)</p>
<p>“…there’s a strong undertone of implication that a certain ethnic group I happen to belong to is responsible for whatever the speaker complains is wrong with New Yorkers in general.”
So, were you referring to the article or life in general or certain posts on the thread?</p>
<p>Are you serious Woody?
Read post #46 over and over.</p>
<p>Yes, I was really trying to make the connection between her comments and the article. I read the article and saw no particular ethnic group being slurred. I thought i was missing something. I see DonnaL explained herself in previous posts</p>
<p>As a former New Yorker, I don’t see the ethnic connection, unless you mean WASPs. I don’t think this is about Jews at all.</p>
<p>“As a former New Yorker, I don’t see the ethnic connection, unless you mean WASPs. I don’t think this is about Jews at all.”</p>
<p>As a current New Yorker, married to an Italian American, I was convinced that was to whom the article referred.</p>
<p>ZM, do you mean that you that it referred to Jews, or to Italian-Americans? </p>
<p>I went back to the article to see if could pick up any clues. All the people quoted in the article provide services to the rich–they didn’t quote a single rich person who is having these problems, so I don’t think the apparent ethnicity of the names helps. I didn’t find any smoking gun (like scaling back bar mitzvahs or something). I guess a lot of Jews live in Scarsdale, but isn’t Greenwich more WASPy? My reaction to this article was that it referred to all the super-rich, who come from several ethnic groups.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was my reaction too. Again, I will note that the New York Times published this article, with its tone, suggests that plenty of New Yorkers are grounded about the role of wealth in human life.</p>
<p>"ZM, do you mean that you that it referred to Jews, or to Italian-Americans? "
Italian Americans.</p>
<p>I’m just curious–was there some code-word in there that made you think that? I thought it referred to WASPs (if any specific group) because of the mention of a Bentley.</p>
<p>“I’m just curious–was there some code-word in there that made you think that?”</p>
<p>Not any specific codeword, but the flashiness and the talk of divorce lawyer made me think of the Italian American community that I know – many of whom work on Wall Street or the financial community. A lot of lawyers who used to do corporate (as in the department, not working for corporations) work went on to make buckets of money as investment bankers in the last two decades, and I know a bunch of them and many happened to be Italian American. Just bringing my own experience/bias/assumptions to bear.</p>
<p>Not all New Yorkers are like that, most are worried about how they are going to pay their rent next month.</p>
<p>Wow - this thread is taking a strange turn. I am a lifelong New Yorker, and I agree completely with Donna’s original post 35. I know people who fit in all the categories mentioned in the article, from the very rich, to those who service them. New Yorkers are incredibly diverse, and one of the best things about living here is you can’t hide. Million dollar apartments exist on the same block, in many cases, with rent-stablized or controlled apartments housing the elderly, the poor, sometimes the mentally-ill. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, you can never insulate yourself from the reality of other lives, and I beleive my kids are more empathetic and aware of unfairness and injustice because they see these differences, and they live them. </p>
<p>Are some New Yorkers awful people? of course - there are some in Seattle too.</p>