"CULTURE VULTERING" IN THE BIG APPLE
This is a twice-a-year
routine, but it is becoming increasingly expensive. These past three years, I have noted that
apartment rentals and restaurants prices have gone through the roof. The modest furnished studio apartment I used
to rent for under $ 200 a day, now goes for $ 240 and counting. Museums have joined the inflation carousing
and now unabashedly charge $ 18 or more for a visit. This is a particularly sore point for a
spoiled museum-goer like me. As a senior
citizen in Brazil, I either do not pay or am charged half-price. The ruthless law of supply and demand rules
in New York City, and I suspect Manhattan to be the borough of the stealth
inflation!
Restaurants
have always puzzled me, they crop up and vanish overnight. Many cherished and busy landmarks have
disappeared inexplicably. One cannot
meet in a restaurant unless it has been previously checked. NYC is the city of the 80% fail rate, out of
the 1000 restaurants which opened in 2016, 800 will go out of business within
five years. Asian art is not in my
comfort zone but my favorite foods are Chinese, Thai and Indian. Sadly, I was unable to indulge in the sweet
and sour prawns served at the high-end farewell-my-concubine-type decoration Shun
Lee West restaurant because the Health Department had closed it down for health
violations. Mice and roaches were found scurrying
in the kitchen. The cat should not have
gone into the Chop Suey!
Compared to
Paris and Rio, the menus of Manhattan restaurant look affordable, but reality-check
comes when the 8.875% sales tax on goods and services and the 15% service
gratuity are added up. Now, some
restaurants even suggest a 18% gratuity.
Actually, I am always stingy when it comes to gratuity; for me it should
be based on the number of courses and not the price of the food: to bring two
dishes of noodles is more legwork for the waiter than one expensive lobster
plate! The restaurant, Le Pain Quotidien
is one of these 18% enthusiasts. This
international chain of bakery-restaurants was founded in Brussels and its
success is based on the quality and freshness of its organic food and the availability
of free WIFI. Despite this 18%
suggestion, I very much like LPQ which I discovered in the 2000s in
Geneva. Too bad, the service doesn’t
match the quality of the food.
Window
shopping is the cheapest cultural pursuit in Manhattan. During my stay, department stores, such as
Bergdorf Goodman, had just unveiled their Christmas windows, each one more
gorgeous than the next. Many of the
store windows were inspired by themes from New York City museums and landmarks[1].
Rents are also soaring for stores, and
if the process is not reversed, soon there will not be many windows to gaze at. Third Avenue near Bloomingdale department store
is a case in point: many corner stores are desperately boarded up. Retail chains are growing and independent mom
and pop stores are closing, due to online shopping and the speculative behavior
of landlords. The administration of Bill
de Blasio, the newly re-elected mayor is concerned with the problem. Notwithstanding the need to overhaul the oppressive
municipal tax system, some are pondering enacting a socialist flavored vacancy
tax on unoccupied storefronts.
Bergdorf Goodman: Botanical Gardens
I have many
friends in Manhattan, but I usually go solo about my cultural explorations. However, this time, I had a partner in
culture, my lady friend L. We had fine-tuned
the advanced logistics to slot as many events as possible in a fixed-time
period. Still, tradeoff was unavoidable.
This time around, there were no hype or
blockbuster exhibits. Not to say that
the art scene was subdued. Very much to
the contrary. On November 15, Christie
laughed all the way to the bank having raked in US$ 785.9 million during its
evening sale. Overnight, Leonardo become
a household name, Leonardo da Vinci that is.
His poorly restored Salvator Mundi
portrait sold for more than US$ 450 million to an anonymous buyer who later was
found out to be none other than the Saudi Crown Prince!
Exceptionally,
I skipped the Met to instead go to the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum whose new exhibit
had created a non-artistic buzz. The
exotic show was titled Art of China after
1986: Theater of the World. Actually, it was more a circus than a theater
as the Chinese artists had planned to display a menagerie of reptiles, insects,
pit-bulls on a treadmill and mating pigs in their installations and
videos. Not controversial enough, animal
rights activists branded the exhibition as cruelty against animals and vowed to
protest and threatened violence. The
museum caved in. I saw the exhibit
without the provocative pieces, except for the large turtle-shaped reptile
cage, aka the Theater of the World; it was left empty as evidence of censorship:
freedom of expression vs animal rights.
We saw
several other exhibitions, mostly of historic nature. Downtown
Abbey: The Exhibition fits this
definition. When the aristocratic
Crawley family and their down-stairs staff landed in Manhattan, we could not
miss a chance to “experience the history, the fashion and the house” as the
exhibition promises. I am a great fan of
the British series (have all the episodes in DVD!) Actually, after noticing $12 packets of
Scottish shortbreads in the gift shop, I had low expectation and feared a $28
commercial trap. The traveling exhibition
is sponsored by Viking cruise line, a questionable choice for a series which began
with the sinking of the Titanic. The
exhibits, the replicas, and the historic and social panels were impressive but
their layout was not of museum quality.
The clothes, some vintage and other made for the characters were
stunning and contributed to our longing for the company of Mr. Carson and Lady
Mary.
My musical
highlights were a concert and Thais, a
French opera at the Met. Valery Gergiev
and his Mariinsly orchestra enthralled us at Carnegie Hall with an all-Russian
program. Because Gergiev is a close
friend of President Vladimir Putin, many regard him as his personal cultural
propagandist. A medley of Russian émigré
political protestors and gay rights activists entertained us outside the concert
hall with banners and slogans of little artistic value.
Thais, Jules Massenet’s melodramatic opera
is rarely performed because, among other reasons, it requires a sexy soprano
with a lustrous voice to sing the title role of Thais, an oriental
courtesan. Opera buffs like L. and I
could not miss this opportunity. It was
a Met signature production: excellent singing, fine orchestra (under the
leadership of a maestro not embroiled in sexual abuse of boys) and a laughable staging
with dated sets and gaudy costumes. The
Met seems not to have caught up with 21th century tastes; it keeps churning out
pompous productions which distract from the singing and the drama. Although a characteristic 19th
century opera, Thais is a story of
sex and salvation which lends itself to intelligent updating. A self-righteous, ascetic monk becomes sexually
obsessed (with erotic dreams!) with the courtesan he aims at converting. At the end, like the majority of opera
heroines, Thais dies and ascends to heaven in the arms of angels and the monk
collapses in despair.
Expensive
culture-vultering, but worth it.
Incidentally, Fifth Avenue is not as grid locked as it was last November, the
pandemonium has moved to Washington DC.
Manhattan: Fall Colors
.
[1] To
enjoy the windows, go to
http:/blog.bergdorfgoodman.com/worl-of-bg/windows/2017-holiday-windows-2/
Your blog makes me want to go to New York once more, despite the cost still a great city with so many options. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteDear MS, thank you for your comment.
DeleteI have received several emails which refer to the high cost of living for tourists in the Big Apple. My friends complain of the high cost of food, tipping 20% in restaurant, etc. My pet peeve is the 20% tip suggestion. Restaurateurs pay their waiters a minimum, so they survive on tips. As a matter of fact, they survive well. At the end, the restaurant bill is high. Why are restaurants so expensive? Check this link:
http://www.grubstreet.com/2016/10/new-report-finds-nyc-really-is-too-expensive-for-restaurants.html
On the culture scene, I have received a comment in Portuguese, will copy it with the English translation.
Received from a friend: "The two Mets are institutions in decline and in need of fresh ideas. How to balance innovation with tradition? Opera is a demanding art form. Attention grabbing productions may not be to everyone's taste. "
ReplyDeleteComment received from L. "Great blog! I think Rio and Sao Paulo are just as expensive as NY, at least as far as restaurant prices are concerned. I agree with you about tip inflation; it always used to be 15%, and now everyone is pushing for more. I personally wish that tipping were abolished, or that 10% tip was included in the bill, as in Europe."
ReplyDeleteReceived from France: "J'ai beaucoup apprécié ton article sur l'Opéra Thais. Par contre au risque de te décevoir tout le début concernant le coût de la vie et les restaurants à new York m'indiffèrent totalement. On aime New York pour ses extravagances son dynamisme, sa vie culturelle le reste il faut faire avec. Il est vrai que lors de notre dernier séjour en septembre 2017 un ami nous avait prête son appartement et préparions notre frichti dans sa cuisine donc aucun problème d'intendance ou de dépenses astronomiques."
ReplyDeleteReceived from "snowed in" London: "Great blog - but if you think NYC is expensive, London can beat it hands down. The V&A exhibition ‘Opera; passion, power and politics’ cost £19 to get in; fortunately I’m a member so pay yearly and can take another person in, so it works out much better value."
ReplyDeleteAnother from Paris: "When in NYC, we avoid restaurants all together, a rip off. We walk, go to little known museums and do discounted ticket Broadway show."
Another anonymous comment on the cost of living: "Many things are cheaper in NYC than in Europe, such as clothes, shoes, food, etc. The most expensive item is housing and according to a recent article in the Times, the high cost of housing keeps many immigrants from moving to New York where there is plenty of work available and the wages are higher than elsewhere. They prefer to go to cities where they earn less, but housing is cheaper, so it evens out in the end. As for restaurants, a lot of people don’t know how to order here, e.g. if you order bottled water which is de rigueur in Europe and restaurants are trying to impose here, or if you order coffee at the end these two things alone (not to mention dessert), after taxes are added, can pad the bill considerably. Yes, we usually tip 20 per cent in restaurants. We used to double the tax, but that seems chintzy these days."
ReplyDeleteReceived from a friend: "As a New Yorker I agree that the city is getting more and more expensive, especially apartments and restaurants. But it is also expensive in most cities in developed (and some developing) countries. It is not only foreigners who find New York expensive but Americans who travel from small towns across the country.
ReplyDeleteThey used to call Americans who travel to foreign countries “ugly Americans” because they compared everything to home and found it lacking. I believe that term “ugly” can also be used for foreigners who come here and complain about the prices (everyone, including New Yorkers, do that) but do not follow the “rules” for tipping in restaurants because it is not done that way in their home country. As one of the posters noted, we used to double the sales tax but now we usually tip 20 per cent of the bill minus the tax. If that is the norm here that should be the amount that visitors tip as a rule. Of course, there are always exceptions, such as really bad service.
Some restaurants are beginning to include tips in the cost of the food, as in some other countries, but these restaurants are still in the minority. There are also visitors from countries where tips are included in the cost of the meal who assume that it is the same here. As expected, waiters are not very happy with these people who have not bothered to learn the “rules” of the country they are visiting."
Comments keep coming from frustrated readers who can't post them by themselves!!:" I’d taken a quick look at the blog, loved the pictures, so sorry some of the trip was disappointing, and yes, those extra charges! I was rather surprised to hear about the art in NYC as I’d been reading with envy about what sounded like great exhibits of Rodin, Michelangelo, and my old favorite Gorky. Thais, lucky you, I have never seen it. Awful about James Levine, I remember his early days as an Asst Conductor to George Szell in Cleveland, he was a star even then, loved seeing his performances."
ReplyDeleteHi my friend, my trip was very enjoyable. Saw plenty of other exhibitions to compensate for Michelangelo (only prints!!), Rodin (as a feminist, never liked him!), Munch ( without the Scream I saw at MOMA a couple of years ago) and Gorky (didn't know he was exhibited!).
DeleteYour comments were appreciated.