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Returning to New York by David Henderson Sitting in my office in downtown Washington, DC – national monuments in view and the rolling hills of northern Virginia in the background – the last thing on my mind when the phone rang was New York. The call was unexpected and from a respected executive search firm. The headhunter asked if I would be interested in joining a French software company that had relocated headquarters to New York from Paris for the purpose to expanding marketing into the U.S. and eventually, going public. I thanked him but declined. High tech startup companies are a dime a dozen these days, and I had heard that only one of three actually succeeds. They are high-risk jobs, especially for baby boomers, and especially for me, a baby boomer secure in a senior VP position with a prestigious Washington company.
Many of my baby boomers friends are talking of moving to sun-and-fun places or the coasts of Oregon or Maine at this point in their lives. Maybe I’m doing things in reverse by returning to New York City to live. It was 1970 that I first came to New York as a young correspondent for CBS Network News. I can assure you that the city today is different, better in some areas, still crummier in others. First, the cost of living. If we thought an apartment in Manhattan was expensive 25 years ago -- 1200 square feet for about $600 a month -- things have changed. Driven by the recent high tech glory days on Wall Street, real estate prices have skyrocketed to unbelievable levels. For example, it costs about $2500 a month to rent a tiny, 500 square foot apartment today in a marginal building (that means you better have a strong lock on the door). The cost of keeping a car in New York is out-of-the-question. Finding a parking space on the street is nearly impossible, and even if you do, theft and vandalism are rampant. A parking garage is mandatory and a decent one runs about $900 a month. The random acts of violence that so identified Manhattan in the 70s have been replaced in the news by stories of extreme police brutality (shooting unarmed Africans 41 times, etc.). Don't get me wrong -- there are still stories of people being pushed in front of approaching subway trains by the mentally ill, strangers, for no reason at all other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pickpockets, robberies, rapes and shootings are still commonplace in New York. The visible sign of many street people, the homeless, is no longer so overwhelming as it once was. At the urging of genteel and tourism leaders, mayor Rudolph Guiliani solved the homeless problem by locking them up. That's now become a campaign issue as he runs for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton. There are still more restaurants than any other city on the planet. Zagat estimates 1,816 in Manhattan, alone, not counting all the fast food places. And, most of them, especially the ethnic ones, are pretty good. New Yorkers are a demanding, brash mob so mediocre restaurants quickly fail for lack of patrons.
All that said, Manhattan remains the most exciting city in America.
The financial, corporate,
cultural, media and intellectual energy of New York, in so many ways, not
only sets the pace for an entire nation but influences the whole world. It
is accurate to say that New York today is the "Rome of the 21st
Century." Where else, for example, can you see what I saw on a subway the other day -- a young woman dressed-up like one of the witches from "The Wizard of Oz"? She had pompadour hair, heavy pale white makeup, pencil-thin painted-on eyebrows and wore square-toed black patent-leather shoes, red and white striped knees socks, a red starched dress out of the 40s, and narrow sunglasses. Cool. New York is not Kansas, Toto. Never has been.
If you are music-lover, check out the web site of the New York City Opera: http://www.nycopera.com/.
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The headhunter called back a few days later, provided more details
about the new position and began mentioning words that capture our
imagination these days – “stock options” and “bonuses.” He had my interest. After
another couple of months of meetings and discussions, I agreed to join the
company. The job would be in
New York City – 250 miles from the comfort and elegant living of
Washington, DC. New York, I
thought, can’t be that bad.
New York's quaintness of the 70s -- when there were tiny cafes and
coffee shops, bookstores and ethnic charm that made the city the most
European-feeling of all American cities -- is sadly fading.