The Arts in New York City

When I think of Uptown, for some reason my mind doesn’t immediately rush towards images of skyscrapers and congestion. Honestly, I think wealthy and high class people. People that tend to be snooty and all around ridiculous. That’s why when faced with the blog question I couldn’t shake this image out of my head:  See, there’s a lot of people in it, but it isn’t too crowded. These people are definitely rich, and most definitely ridiculous. I mean, come on, who the hell where’s a dress in the park. And, I don’t mean sundress, it’s like full on down to the floor, ruffles, and a corset. Clearly ridiculous. As if the women weren’t crazy enough, let’s talk about the men. You know, I didn’t realize Abraham Lincoln wanted to go for a stroll through the park with his pimp cane and top hat.

On a more serious note, I really do think this does portray Uptown even if its not set in New York. To me Uptown is more of a style rather than a place. It’s almost as if you can see someone on the street and know right away what they’re trying to portray with their fancy clothes. Georges Seurat did a great job of displaying what I consider to be “Uptown.”

In my head, the word “uptown” is immediately associated with fancy evenings and french restaurants.  Wealthy New York is the likes of 5th and Park Ave.  Glamorous shops, polished people, even the children are neat and “perfect.” Uptown is where people dress up to go out daily, with diamonds and everything. Our equivalent of these high society events is going to a club or any social event but not with nearly the same sophistication.  Their priorities are different, they deal with millions as we would deal with singles.   The “casual” for me would be sweatpants or jeans while for them may be a suit with no tie.  I usually associate these wealthy people, probably unfairly, with being snobs and looking down on all those not as rich.  This is most likely not the case with people of great stature, but after watching many biased movies, it’s hard not to think so.

However, because Manhattan sees so different varieties of people, I believe that the so called wealthy can have different faces.  I immediately think of How I Met Your Mother the T.V. series.  This group of friends comes from all over the world and seem to have really good jobs in NYC.  They live in such spacious Manhattan apartments and money never seems to be the issue with them.  The way they act however doesn’t match the same sophistication associated with the wealthy.  This image of them in tuxedos and dresses allows them to fit right in with those who own millions.  But watching this episode, they do not act the same way and actually present themselves really immaturely.  Because I consider them among the “uptown” group, it’s nice to see a little contrast to the image portrayed in movies.