What’s the best way you could describe growing up on Staten Island or Long Island to me?

[Anonymous]

Anyone who denies this is LYING.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anyone who denies this is LYING.

Dcum guidettes

Show yourselves

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyone who denies this is LYING.

Dcum guidettes

Show yourselves

They are definitely on here.

I hear their voices when I am out in public and without even looking at them or looking in their direction I immediately know where they are from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gatsby was new money.

And there is some money on SI. New money, living in gaudy AF houses. It's mostly blue collar though.

My point is that at this point, the people that book was based on are old money.

Daisy was from Louisville, Kentucky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Long Island - new money, tacky people
Staten Island - no money, hard working people.

Not applicable to all parts of Long Island. Remember The Great Gatsby took place on Long Island.

in the 1930s!

Plus Gatsby was new money and so was Daisy

Not to get sidetracked, but Daisy was not supposed to be "new money." Hence why she married someone like Tom Buchanan rather than Gatsby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:South shore Nassau here. Everyone at my school was white and either Irish Catholic, Italian Catholic, or Jewish. The 2-3 minority kids were mercilessly made to feel "other" by the vast majority of the student body. Vast majority of families were Republican and it's super Trumpy there now. Towns were very segregated and wealthier, whiter towns had better-funded schools. Super common for someone to call out "lock your doors!" as soon as you drove into a "black" area. The entire surrounding area to my town was Sunrise Highway - the LIRR train tracks, strip malls, car dealerships. Most people I went to school with never left and it shows. The pizza, bagels, and Italian bakeries are amazing. It was fun to grow up next to the beach. Most everything else sucks.

Lol this brings back memories! My good friend was from Massapequa. What was the read on that town?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The other thing I really miss is the curating of connections that everyone in my neighborhood seemed to do, whether it was a nightclub doorman, a guy who could get your free cable, someone who could fix a parking ticket, somebody that knew a cop and could ask him to not show up in court, I used to buy all my cigarettes from a union electrician who lived three doors down from me, he’d sell for 10 bucks a carton when they normally ran for 30, I don’t know where he got them but none of the packs had a tax stamp on them.
What seems to be missing most here is the hustle and mild corner cutting that everyone seemed to do back home, it made life fun and made you feel like less of a sheep; maybe it’s because of the proximity to government here and since they have a lock on corruption nobody else even thinks of competing.

This! This is part of the vibe that makes a place. I now live in MOCO and while I love the diversity, sometimes it feels like I could be in any generic bland suburb across the US. NY has a vibe that’s hard to explain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am from LI and have lived in NOVA for 13 years. When we got married, on LI, I told my husband that I worked out a deal with the restaurant that if his parents wanted to pay cash for the rehearsal dinner we would not have to pay tax. That didn't go over well!

Why?!?? Sounds like a great deal!

Yes! Of COURSE you pay in cash to avoid tax. It's not done quietly either - they give you a cash price and a credit card/check price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:South shore Nassau here. Everyone at my school was white and either Irish Catholic, Italian Catholic, or Jewish. The 2-3 minority kids were mercilessly made to feel "other" by the vast majority of the student body. Vast majority of families were Republican and it's super Trumpy there now. Towns were very segregated and wealthier, whiter towns had better-funded schools. Super common for someone to call out "lock your doors!" as soon as you drove into a "black" area. The entire surrounding area to my town was Sunrise Highway - the LIRR train tracks, strip malls, car dealerships. Most people I went to school with never left and it shows. The pizza, bagels, and Italian bakeries are amazing. It was fun to grow up next to the beach. Most everything else sucks.

Lol this brings back memories! My good friend was from Massapequa. What was the read on that town?

PP here. Massapequa was a little trashy back in the day, and a lot trashy now. One of those towns where the locals are throwing screaming tantrums about having to give up their "Indian Chief" mascot. MAGA everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:South shore Nassau here. Everyone at my school was white and either Irish Catholic, Italian Catholic, or Jewish. The 2-3 minority kids were mercilessly made to feel "other" by the vast majority of the student body. Vast majority of families were Republican and it's super Trumpy there now. Towns were very segregated and wealthier, whiter towns had better-funded schools. Super common for someone to call out "lock your doors!" as soon as you drove into a "black" area. The entire surrounding area to my town was Sunrise Highway - the LIRR train tracks, strip malls, car dealerships. Most people I went to school with never left and it shows. The pizza, bagels, and Italian bakeries are amazing. It was fun to grow up next to the beach. Most everything else sucks.

Lol this brings back memories! My good friend was from Massapequa. What was the read on that town?

PP here. Massapequa was a little trashy back in the day, and a lot trashy now. One of those towns where the locals are throwing screaming tantrums about having to give up their "Indian Chief" mascot. MAGA everywhere.

Don’t forget, Massapequa gave us Jerry Seinfeld and all of the Baldwin brothers, even Danny.

Danny Baldwin, ne’er do well, occasional dealer, bookie, super low level mob associate and active cocaine user from the late 70s to mid aughts- he should be the town mascot because he is so completely perfect for the South Shore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Long Island - new money, tacky people
Staten Island - no money, hard working people.

Staten Island - SNL makes a lot of negative commentary on Staten Island.
Though am not sure if this is because it really is bad or because alumni Pete Davidson lives there. 😂

[Anonymous]

Colin Jost is also from Staten Island. I'm pretty sure the jokes are done lovingly. Fred Armsin and Kate McKinnon are from LI and McKinnon did a great spoof of the LI Medium

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:South shore Nassau here. Everyone at my school was white and either Irish Catholic, Italian Catholic, or Jewish. The 2-3 minority kids were mercilessly made to feel "other" by the vast majority of the student body. Vast majority of families were Republican and it's super Trumpy there now. Towns were very segregated and wealthier, whiter towns had better-funded schools. Super common for someone to call out "lock your doors!" as soon as you drove into a "black" area. The entire surrounding area to my town was Sunrise Highway - the LIRR train tracks, strip malls, car dealerships. Most people I went to school with never left and it shows. The pizza, bagels, and Italian bakeries are amazing. It was fun to grow up next to the beach. Most everything else sucks.

Lol this brings back memories! My good friend was from Massapequa. What was the read on that town?

PP here. Massapequa was a little trashy back in the day, and a lot trashy now. One of those towns where the locals are throwing screaming tantrums about having to give up their "Indian Chief" mascot. MAGA everywhere.

Don’t forget, Massapequa gave us Jerry Seinfeld and all of the Baldwin brothers, even Danny.

AND Joey Buttafuco and Amy Fisher! God I feel old now!

Danny Baldwin, ne’er do well, occasional dealer, bookie, super low level mob associate and active cocaine user from the late 70s to mid aughts- he should be the town mascot because he is so completely perfect for the South Shore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Long Island - new money, tacky people
Staten Island - no money, hard working people.

Staten Island - SNL makes a lot of negative commentary on Staten Island.
Though am not sure if this is because it really is bad or because alumni Pete Davidson lives there. 😂

Staten Island is a lot of cops and fire fighters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up on Long Island and I would move back there if I could.
I grew up 35 miles from Manhattan on the North Shore, they were connected guys and organized crime was clearly involved in organizing refuse, concrete, liquor, provisions, restaurant supply etc. A kid I went to school with was a member of a family whose name was on the side of pretty much every dumpster from Queens out to Suffolk County, they never seem to be anything more than a hard-working family business but looking back there’s no possible way they weren’t operating alongside organized crime.

The way zoning worked all low income housing was in one specific area, here at least in Virginia section 8 and subsidized housing is lightly mixed in everywhere except the most expensive ZIP Codes. Schools were and still are fabulous in my town, taxes are around $24k a year for a 1/4 acre lot and those high taxes suppress sale prices for single-family homes. A house that would cost you 1.6 million in Alexandria will cost you 650,000 in my old town but your payment will be the same because the taxes are astronomical. A huge number of my friends from my high school still live within a few miles of their childhood homes, almost everyone I knew was a second or third generation American so some of that “not going too far from home” thing is likely a byproduct of that.

My high school had a graduating class of 143, mostly Irish and Italian kids whose parents had moved out to Long Island from Brooklyn or Queens, all my friends parents had really heavy New York accents, diversity meant that there might’ve been a few kids that were Dutch because there were like seven black kids in the whole school. I remember some of the Latino kids anglicized the pronunciation of their last names- think Martin..ez instead of Marrteenez.
My neighborhood which was only a few square miles was once a vacation community for rich people from the city, mostly two and three bedroom bungalows, some had been remodeled and enlarged over the years but for the most part they looked just like they did in 1946. You could have a bank executive living next to a lobstermen and they both had the same view of the sound. Most of my friends dad’s were union construction workers in NYC who were making $130,000 a year in the early 90s; they’d leave the house at 4:30 AM and be back at the train station by 5 PM with a tall boy beer in a bag.
The great part about my town’s proximity to Manhattan was that even if you didn’t find your people in our little community you could find exactly who and what you were looking for in the city which was only 40 minutes by train. I don’t remember exactly what it was called but I had a friend that went some sort of punk goth direction, he was the only one that dressed the way he did but every single Friday night after school he was jumping on the train to head to a club full of people just like him, same for gay or lesbian kids; you’re a $10 train ride from people who understand you versus being some poor kid stuck in the middle of Indiana on a farm.

The other thing I really miss is the curating of connections that everyone in my neighborhood seemed to do, whether it was a nightclub doorman, a guy who could get your free cable, someone who could fix a parking ticket, somebody that knew a cop and could ask him to not show up in court, I used to buy all my cigarettes from a union electrician who lived three doors down from me, he’d sell for 10 bucks a carton when they normally ran for 30, I don’t know where he got them but none of the packs had a tax stamp on them.
What seems to be missing most here is the hustle and mild corner cutting that everyone seemed to do back home, it made life fun and made you feel like less of a sheep; maybe it’s because of the proximity to government here and since they have a lock on corruption nobody else even thinks of competing.

I realize this is probably none of what you wanted to know but it was fun to think about.

This hit home with me! We always had a guy for whatever we needed back home. I have found myself casually mentioning a corner cutting norm in NYC and have gotten a few weird looks and raised eyebrows here.
NYC (especially the boroughs) is somehow a big city and a small town tight knit community.
I live a totally different life here than the one I grew up with.

Man I miss NYC.......

Yes! DH is from a close in nyc suburb, and I always joke with him that his dad has a “guy” for everything. It’s nearly impossible here to find anyone to help around the house.

PPP here- that’s exactly how I used to describe where I grew up- it was a small town in a big place. When I would be out in other parts of the island and people would ask where I lived most didn’t know where it was until I mentioned the larger town nearby.
The other thing I really miss is pretty much every store and restaurant was a mom and Pop operation, the chain stores were relegated out near the shopping mall and car dealerships, almost every business you went to was operated by someone whose entire stake was invested in that, boutique, card shop, bar, deli, bagel store, restaurant etc.

I’ve lived in bland nova for almost 25 years now, but I like old town and being close to DC and museums. This has been fun, I’ll be thinking about home all week!

100% this and they care about their customers. If you are a good customer, they will throw you some free stuff everyone once in a while. I’ve been going to my local bagel shop for 15 year and have never once been giving anything for going there 100x a year. They can’t even remember my order and I get the same thing every single time.