New York, New York

As if I didn't talk about it enough... I thought I would blog about it.
I lived in New York for a short while this spring, *surprise* it wasn't at all what I had expected. Though my earlier trips there had prepared me for the 'real' New York, and don't think I really 'got it' until I spent some time there. This proved to be a common topic of discussion amongst my friends and I. We had all grown up with certain images of New York City in our mind.
The New York that everyone sees (and imagines) is that of Midtown: The park, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Grand Central, Broadway, MoMA, The Met, Lincoln Center, etc. These cultural icons that are dwarfed by the giants of captialism that surround them. These old relecs of New York and the Skyline that surrounds them. This is in line with the majority of media images that come out of New York. It is the NY we see in advertisements, news shows, sports shows. It is the New York of all of the images seen here...
It was not, however, my New York. Nor was it my friends, nor is it the New York of the vast majority of its inhabbitants. Their city is not flood of people moving through Grand Central or the Disneyfication of Times Square.
Growing up, I can remember Times square the way it was... maybe. The images I remember as a child were those of a downtrodden area full of Porn Shops and sleezy theaters. That was what I thought of New York as a whole... and the majority of images and representations I saw confirmed that. Violence, greed, drugs, and a flood of people too busy to acknowledge oneanother.
As the city tried to clean up its act in the 90s, so too did the media images. We saw a huge boom in development, saw homeless people and addicts disappear and we saw Times Square as *gasp* a family destination.

I point this out only because the vast majority of the world has never been (nor will they ever go) to New York City. The images that are seen all over the world are a misrepresentation of what the city is and how it works. The tourist ideal is how the majority of the world sees the city. This is applicable to a number of different phenomenon ... generally much more important than the image of a city. This can happen to groups of people, ideas, religions... these are the images that inform people's decisions and beliefs. These are powerful images that can influence the way people understand the world.