Crash Virgins
For Twentysomethings, Past Week Has Been Kind of a Snow Day: Forget Economy, Stupid—It’s Historical! And Hysterical!
“I have zero investments, for better or for worse,” said 26-year-old Ben Zoltowski, a senior print project manager at the advertising agency McCann Erickson. “I feel like New York is already difficult enough to live in financially! I’m used to living paycheck to paycheck and living frugally, because we sort of have to. Most of us have to!”
Mr. Zoltowski, who lives in Williamsburg, went to Ithaca College and graduated in 2003; he moved to New York in July 2006. Like most of his peers, he seems to think that things can’t really get any worse, because he’s already living hand-to-mouth! But it probably hasn’t dawned on him that he might not even be able to afford last call at Greenpoint Tavern when all this shakes out.
Mr. Zoltowski is a Crash Virgin, experiencing his first real New York economic downturn. “To be perfectly honest, it all feels pretty distant to me, Wall Street and all that,” he said. “It feels like a different city to me. One thing I did think about is, I work in advertising, and businesses hire us to represent their products. So if Wall Street is crashing and the economy is going down the drain, who has the money to buy these products? Therefore, what client has money to hire an agency, and therefore, what agency has money to pay me?”
Those aren’t horrible questions to be asking. In the last downturn, which started in March 2000, when the Dow plunged nearly 375 points in one day and the Nasdaq—where most overvalued Internet companies were listed—began a free fall, workers in industries far from Wall Street, particularly technology and media, found themselves scrambling for jobs.
Many people will point to 9/11 as the kickoff of New York’s last recession, but really, by the time the planes hit the twin towers, the city’s economy was already limping; the events of 9/11 just accelerated a decline that had been set in motion months prior. Hiring in the creative industries came to a standstill; when the poor saps who graduated college in 2002—the first class since 9/11—made their expected migration to New York that June, they were greeted with the ugly reality that there were few desirable jobs to be had. One member of the class of 2002, who today lives in New York, moved home to Massachusetts and worked for a year as a teacher’s aide at an elementary school; another took a job making sandwiches at a gourmet shop in Brooklyn. Others bartended or took unpaid internships, intent on waiting out the downturn. The economic trough, combined with finding one’s footing in a city literally covered in ashes, ended up branding those who lived in New York from 2000 to, say, 2003 with the distinction of having endured something momentous and come out the other end intact. It was in fact startling to see, when the sky finally brightened a bit and you took a look around, how many of your peers had hung on and stayed, and made it. Now, over the past week, some of today’s Crash Virgins are becoming mindful of living through An Official Historical Event.
“I did feel like something important was happening, and it happens so seldom where an event will break through the shouting headlines and the 30-second clips,” said John Fischer, a 26-year-old strategist at “predictive marketing” firm Infinia Foresight. (Note to Mr. Fischer: Predictive marketing firms are usually bad at predicting economic collapse.) “It was exciting—but not in a good way.”
“I was on the subway the other day, and there was a guy reading the Financial Times, and people sort of struck up a conversation about how they’re worried about not knowing exactly what’s going on,” said a 25-year-old who works in the art world. “It was two guys in suits who both looked like they worked in finance. One was reading the Financial Times and the other just sort of leaned over and said, ‘If you’re reading that, you’re probably keeping up with the news, and I don’t know if you know, but 10 minutes ago …’ And then he said some news about A.I.G. that I don’t remember. They were sitting next to me, so I just sort of overheard, but it’s something that’s pretty uncommon on the New York City subway.”
Lizzy Goodman was one of the fortunate ones of the class of 2002; upon graduating from Penn, she had a job lined up as an assistant teacher at Buckley, the all-boys school on the Upper East Side. Six years later, she’s an editor at large at Blender. Like some of her peers, she seems hopeful that, instead of being a harbinger of utter doom, this crash will instead level the playing field just a little bit.
“I don’t think anyone is hoping for American financial collapse just so that the Bowery can be seedy again,” said Ms. Goodman, who lives in the West Village. “But on the other hand, if in the wake of this collective shuttering and fearing comes a return to old school ’80s boho New York, I would certainly be in favor of that.”
The disconnect between the New York of legend and the reality of living here has perhaps never been starker. “I know a lot of people who moved to New York for something that isn’t in New York right now,” said Mr. Fischer, the marketing strategist. “There is a sense that things are in transition. I think there’s a big question of how this will change the social and cultural landscape of New York in the next two or three years. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s excitement—but it’s apprehension that something is definitely happening.”
Of course, that’s a story that’s been years in the making; the disappearance of Lehman Brothers and the conversion of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley into bank holding companies—as recently as last year thought to be a sacrilege—isn’t going to make $4,000 a month one-bedrooms on the Lower East Side any cheaper. (Or if it does, they’ll go to $3,500 a month, not $1,500.) The days when a photographer could buy an abandoned bank building on the Bowery for $102,000—as the photographer Jay Maisel did in 1966—are over; they are not coming back. (See also: the Playpen, smoking in bars, liquid lunches, Passerby, subway tokens, the Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue and 21st St., et cetera, not to mention the Algonquin Round Table, the Automat, Spy magazine, Warhol’s Factory, and the Palladium. Also: typewriters.) Some Wall Street types may flee; a few Wharton grads might move to Boston or San Francisco. But it seems highly unlikely that the crash will herald in some utopian new era of “creativity” or allow artists to colonize Soho, or even the East Village, again. It’s over! You missed it! Even Rent has closed! Besides, the Russians are here now. Next Page >
I think trying to get 20-something to make sense of all this madness is just off. Don't get me wrong, I'm part of the generation as well; having recently graduated (class 2008) from college. None of us (20 somethings) have a real clue whats going on when an economy falls, this you are absolutely right about. However I don't think people who look at this from the side of highly paid bankers loosing their jobs have a fully grasped clue as to what's happening either! Sure I'll admit for the longest time I was bent on going into the banking route, but somewhere during the middle of my spring semester I totally changed gears into the Hotel biz. Couldn't be happier. But do I loathe my colleagues who managed to get into banking? Hell no! at the end of the day, no amount of money is worth me having to staying in a crummy office, with a bunch of A-type personalities I probably couldn't stand from 8am till 2 in the morning everyday.
This mess we have on our hands is like the age old tradition welcoming college grads into the "Real World". It hasn't hit us yet, but lets see how people feel in their current lifestyles by late fall of 2009. Then we're gonna start seeing some real discontent.
As a class of 2007 grad working in media, I have to be honest, I don't feel that bad for the young bankers. My starting salary last year was 30k/year. My friends who were first-year analysts started at 80k/year. At the end of the first year, I had lost my job twice and still managed to save quite a bit to keep my life going in times of turmoil. I did that by taking an apartment I could afford and not spending money I didn't have while assuming there would always be more coming in. The fact that these kids are broke now has a lot more to do with their own arrogance and lack of forethought than anything else. And yes, the months of teasing about my salary and my walk-up apartment and all the ignorant disbelief that anyone could survive on so little did wear on me quite a bit. Where's your big swinging dick now, assholes?
I do feel bad for the older guys with the wives and kids and college savings, though. But then again, I went to public school and we didn't have a summer home and did have student loans and I turned out fine. You'll deal.
My only regret is that I will not be able to get back the five minutes of my life that I wasted reading this nonsense article. Fabiola Beracasa is excited for the market meltdown because people will get more creative with their outfits? Are you kidding me? Billions of dollars of wealth have been lost, and there are very real consequences to this. Almost 25% of the income earned in New York comes from jobs in the financial sector. Consider the fact that for those lucky enough to keep their jobs on the street, the majority of the income earned comes in the form of a year end bonus, which will be non existant this year. This is going to be ugly and very, very real. Spare me the thoughts of someone like Ms. Beracasa, who is lucky enough to have a trust fund and will never have to shoulder the burden of having either a real job or an intellectually valuable thought for her whole life.
There is this earned New Yorkiness that comes to people who live here—since no one is really from here
uh, wtf r u talking about? ****lots**** of people are from here. me. my family. and just about the whole block.
d'oh
Guess what? Being here for the Blackout, and even 9-11, does not make you a New Yorker. Being from New York makes you a New Yorker. That includes some parts the Tri-State area as well. If you're Andy Warhol and you contribute to this city for 30 yrs., that makes you a New Yorker as well. Same goes with Derek Jeter, from Kalamazoo, MI.
Also, as an artist, one who is neither starving nor struggling, this will not make NY more creative, it'll have the opposite effect. Artists won't be able to stay here as easily, hoping for their ship to come in. My parents came from poverty, and made it big in this country, only to have a son like me kinda dick around through his twenties, paying his rent, getting in trouble, etc., but it ultimately paid off in the form of critical acclaim and, frankly, money. So I got lucky. But a lot of kids aren't going to have that chance (whether they were spoiled like me, or working 3 jobs for their art), because the jobs that allow them to hang out will either be eliminated, or even worse in a morbid way, THAT MUCH tougher to get with all the competition.
Their may not be the excess there has been in the past, but it's going to get very ugly in this country. It's not just about mortgages and fiscal irresponsibility. There is a brain drain in this country, and great minds from Eastern Europe, India and China are often staying at home in their native countries. And American students, even at Harvard, cannot compare to the education provided by say, ANY of the top 15 colleges in India. We are a nation of idiots, and we're all going to pay dearly for it. Even those of those that are fighting the good fight.
Mr. Zoltowski seems like a real "bag o' beans," as the saying goes.
I think most of these people sound like complete idiots. Lydia is the only one who actually addressed the market and what is happening to people. All those others sound like spoiled little sh**s. And Fabiola, she should be concerned about the economy after reading those horrific stories about her mother. Count your pennies while you still can people.