More bakeries and bookstores and less time spent looking at phone screens
New Year’s resolutions, let alone predictions, have never been my forte.
But just to be on the safe side, as friends are tossing their woes and wishes, penned on pieces of scrap paper, into our bonfire (a Japanese ritual my wife appropriated several decades ago but that I resist), I vow to become a better husband and father and get a book published.
Being a misanthrope also isn’t a particularly productive mind-set when you’re tasked with looking ahead to the coming year in New York City, a place that seems perpetually in the process of reinventing itself—the buildings ever taller, the stores more unaffordable, the restaurants sparkling and packed, no matter the price point and almost no matter the cuisine.
One of the city’s abiding mysteries is where unpaid interns find so much disposable income.
What makes New York truly special, though, is that it achieves—better than almost any other metropolis—an equilibrium between tradition and transformation, between streets that may change little over decades yet hold the promise of a surprise around the next corner.
Was it Dostoyevsky who said you can judge how civilized a society is by entering its prisons?
I’ve always thought bakeries an excellent barometer of a city’s well-being. And bookstores.
By that criteria, I’m not sure we’re doing that swell.
There was a time when you could lead a bakery walking tour up Madison Avenue, picking up a marzipan confection at Rigo, a Hungarian bakery; a Florentine the size of a salad plate at G&M; and a world-class thumbprint cookie at William Greenberg Dessert. Of the three, only Greenberg still exists.
Not long ago, my wife was walking from 57th and Madison to catch a train at Penn Station, hoping to find a bookstore along the way. She didn’t come across a single one.
While a Barnes & Noble still stands at 46th and Fifth, not all that long ago—OK, so it was a while back—there were five bookstores on Fifth between 57th and 48th, by my count.
Her suggestion for reviving literacy: combination raclette restaurants/bookstores.
One thing beyond dispute is that the desire to make a buck in this town burns as brightly as ever. Someone is designing, building, stocking or serving anything that anyone could conceivably want to buy.
Brooklyn and Queens have never been more vital, not tipping quite yet into pretentiousness.
Parts of Manhattan, such as the Far West Side, that were a no-man’s-land only a few years ago, are budding with parks, skyscrapers and a new subway station.
Never underestimate the sublimity of the subway system. And whenever the Second Avenue subway gets completed—the promise is by the end of this year—it will serve as a B12 injection for the entire Upper East Side, those monotonous boulevards east of Lexington Avenue, in particular.
Indeed, the “B12” might be a better name for the coming line than the “Q” train.
But the greatness of a city ultimately turns on how inviting it is to pedestrians. In that respect, the city is prospering. Despite tendinitis, I’m walking more than ever, the health app on my iPhone explaining my ambition only in part.
It’s because, in a city that is becoming increasingly divided between the superrich and the rest of us, all of us can still afford the best show in town.
It isn’t happening on Broadway, or Yankee Stadium, or Barclays Center, or Madison Square Garden. It’s on the streets and in the buses and subways. People watching is the city’s best free entertainment.
Nonetheless, I do have a few concrete New Year wishes, however fantastic:
That citizens, myself included, won’t require checking their mobile devices every 30 seconds to feel important.
That bookstores will make a modest comeback.
And that every bakery that closes will be replaced by two new ones. I’m sorry, but gluten- and dairy-free bakeries don’t count.
—ralph.gardner@wsj.com