The Downtown-ers on the other hand consists of convoluted days and evenings, partying all night, working on their scripts until dawn and walking to the nearest café to nurse their hangovers with some nice greasy bacon and a Bloody Mary. Dressed in black, the Dries Van Noten sweater they saved all month to buy, the sartorial skirts, prints and page boy hair cuts straight out of Italian Vogue. From visiting local used book stores, idling at art gallery openings and with the perennial faux cooler than thou expression on their face as they breathe out Marlboro light fumes.
A cursory glance will have you believing that uptown types are passionate about their appearance and how they are viewed. Constantly in the public or private eye and having to appeal to other rich families just for the sake of their family’s reputation and for family that just might become the new in-laws. They are raised by their parents to always be polite and cordial, with a hint of deception to reach the top of the society ladder. But with the superficiality also comes the good deeds. These kids (or their parents) are avid charity donators. Donating tons of their own money in order to do a good deed — or just make it look good in the papers – either way, who cares? The receiving end isn’t complaining.
What of the downtown set? With their equal devotion to appearance (although their deception is to make you think they don’t care ) and their supposed creative flair, visions and affiliations. They are suppose to represent the other world, the world that doesn’t care about money, class and status just the dramatic beat of a new song they are playing, the idle thoughts that run through their minds as they read through William Burroughs and other renegade authors. Maybe once, sometime as late until the late eighties but that all stopped when the bankers rolled up and threw money at them. Of course money has a funny way of changing things round…
Two distinct enclaves with their own particular tribal rules, customs and attitudes forever turning their nose at each other until now that is…
With the uptown kids migrating to the Meat packing district (when they once ran from it) and the uptown fashion and charity circuits courting downtown figures the lines have blurred. What used to be two distinct enclaves where never the twain shall meet has forever gone. Sure home for some of these kids who come from money and society will always be uptown but the truth is they desperately want in on downtown and the downtown set as much as they like their convoluted experiences and romantic affirmations of laissez faire have acquired a taste for the money. Of course the truth is they really need their money because as uptown has descended downtown en masse, it almost costs more to live downtown than uptown, so much for irony and laissez faire…
In the end to be uptown or downtown is starting to mean less and less, an attitude that has suddenly begun to lose it’s heft and mythical status. What really counts is what you represent and how you can make yourself valuable to the other person living north or south of 14th st. Where downtown once scorned the uptown set they now welcome them with open arms and perhaps rightfully so. Conversely the uptown set can’t get enough of downtown and are even inviting certain select members of the downtown set to their pied a terres. Indeed…
Of course there will come a day one day when you mention you get a nosebleed when you travel north of 14th st that no one will understand what you are talking about. Funny how nosebleeds stop when attitudes change…
What’s the point of this article other than to bash people who have made it financially successful? If you’re looking for flaws in people, it rarely matters much whether that have or have not.
What’s the point of this article other than to bash people who have made it financially successful? If you’re looking for flaws in people, it rarely matters much whether that have or have not.