The Third Way or Why New Yorkers Push Harder

What I’ve noticed over the past couple of weeks is that New Yorkers push harder, be it the playing fields of Central Park, the Midtown bars or the Lower East Side music joints. Perhaps I’m still in the honeymoon period but one can’t help but marvel at the energy and ambition coursing through this city’s being. 

There is certainly a strong sense of the self here with everyone having the right to follow his or her path, but rather less obvious is the community spirit prevalent to support this individualism; if you’re trying hard, we’re all behind you. The most obvious manifestation of this would probably be the ubiquitous “good job” which we tend to see through cynical eyes as unnecessary hyperbole but is actually somewhat of a feedback loop employed from a very early age to encourage their offspring. As a consequence, I would generalise and say that people here don’t tend to sit inert while the world passes them by but commit fully and either succeed or fail; failure at the very least bringing experience and hopefully resilience. It’s quite inspiring actually.

New Yorkers don’t just put their all into work but also play. I witnessed this first hand on a recent trip to Governer’s Island, a smallish clump of land a 10 minute ferry crossing from downtown Manhattan, where unawares I landed in the middle of a ‘Jazz Age’ festival on one of the lawns. I’d noticed a few girls dressed up like Tallulah in Bugsy Malone but hadn’t really twigged that this wasn’t just the latest trend given the amount of tattoo ink that went with the delicate dresses and headscarves.

The gusto with which the Americans take on their task of getting into the swing of things is full-on. I can’t envisage the same amount of effort going into a similar idea back in England. With prohibition ditties emanating from the rather superb Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra I felt like I'd landed on Jay Gatsby's lawn. Here's a sample of the atmosphere....

One dreamland snooze later, I returned to Manhattan Island to work out what drives New Yorkers to push harder....while I would love to pour scorn on popular opinion and tell you it is some higher purpose, I honestly think a lot of it boils down to the almighty dollar. I've overheard a number of conversations where he who makes the most money is generally considered to be the winner; the rich are venerated such that a 2007 poll of Wall Street bankers found that if there was a 50% chance of getting caught stealing $10 million, only 7% would do it but if the chance of getting caught were zero, this number jumped to a staggering 58% (New Yorker article on Raj Rajaratnam worth a read)

I also found an interesting article explaining some of the differences between the various cities in the US and how their ambitions differ - New York is money, LA is lifestyle, Boston is intellectualism and Silicon Valley is all about power. "Ambition is Critical"

For the most part, the sheer optimism is proving very inspiring and be it for money or something else, the energy is excellent