I’ve been a fan of New York City since before my family moved to the greater megalopolitan area last summer. This is even in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that my first two experiences with the Big Apple occurred on and around the 1998 Puerto Rican Day Parade and December 31, 1999. “Too big, too crowded, too snobby!” cry the detractors, and I respond with “So fun, so exciting, so sophisticated!” I also fully adopted that venerable journal, The New York Times, as my own, when my parents signed up for the Sunday edition a number of years ago. Sunday mornings I would find myself confronted with two large piles of newsprint: the hometown rag featured stories about three-year-olds dying in apartment fires, an editorial page that twice endorsed King George II, and a section called WomaNews. The visitor from the East featured an incredible magazine, travel section, and book review, in addition to an Arts & Leisure section so large it was actually two sections, and yes, I admit it, SundayStyles. Upon arriving in the Purple Valley, I began consuming the paper in its online format almost 24/7 (a trait painfully obvious to those who know me), which meant that on the occasions where I did pick up a physical copy of the Times, I had usually read most of the articles. The paper, like the city it hails from, also has its critics of course. “Too smug! Too biased!” they yell, and I say “So witty! Yes, but in the right direction!”
The NYT travel section has a regular feature called “36 Hours in…”, which gives a kind of play-by-play schedule for a weekend trip to a certain destination. This week’s happened to be the South End of Boston. Wow, I thought. It’s not very often that an individual neighborhood gets featured. Boston must be doing pretty well on the Trend-o-meter. But as soon I read the first sentence, I started to question my spirited defense of the city and newspaper that so many people love to love and love to hate:
Boston, while still not quite an avatar of cool, is showing plenty of signs, for better or for worse, of hipness.
Translation: If you thought that you were going to be reading about the next SoHo, think again. We are dealing here with mere signs of hipness, not the pure, undiluted hipness that can only be found below 14th Street (or possibly in Brooklyn).
Spending 36 hours in the South End proves that Boston has a happening, maybe glamorous, scene — even if some Bostonians still believe in eating supper at 5 o’clock.
Translation: You know, it’s really quite nice of us to even consider using the word “glamorous” in conjunction with your humble city. We had to put that crack in there about eating early just to even things out.
The tiny, tin-ceilinged room is packed with the South End’s beautiful people listening to Nuevo Latino music and drinking plenty of wine — malbec from Argentina, carmenères from Chile — as they wait for tables. And there isn’t a lobster roll in sight.
Translation: OMG! A Boston restaurant with, *gasp*, “beautiful people”? (Oh wait, they’re actually just “the South End’s beautiful people”. Because, I mean, statistically, every city must have a few people that are more attractive than average.) And it doesn’t serve some stereotypical food item? I must be dreaming!
There are Bellinis, pomegranate cosmos and Herradura tequila and Cointreau margaritas to be downed with a mixed crowd of Euro-students, chic-beyond-belief adults and neighborhood regulars. This bar alone fills Boston’s glamour quotient.
Translation: Boston can really only handle one glamorous establishment. You add a second, and then you’re just spreading the beautiful people too thin.
Sure, it’s not New York City, but grab a bagel stuffed with salmon and slathered with cream cheese, anyway, at the South End Buttery (314 Shawmut Avenue, 617-482-1015).
Translation: What a trial it is to force these inferior provincial bagels on my refined Manhattan palate! But I suppose I must bear it.
Methinks I doth protest too much. There are actually a lot of great recommendations in the article, especially for those of us who work in the South End or who otherwise find themselves in Boston, and those who will find themselves there shortly. But come on, New York, this whole condescension-through-back-handed-compliments act is getting really old. A city that prides itself on being so cosmopolitan can often come across as startlingly narrow-minded.
