San Francisco vs Boston

[Archangel]

I prefer Boston.

Philly has a good gay life. More than Boston. 

[+ Charlie]

4 hours ago, Archangel said:

I prefer Boston.

Philly has a good gay life. More than Boston. 

One of my favorite books was the classic Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia by E. Digby Baltzell, about the differences between the two cities.

[socurious]

Philadelphia is dirty and even dirtier than New York. I was dissapointed when I visited. This was during the pandemic  in 2021, though. That could be the reason. Can anybody confirm?

[+ azdr0710]

 

[dbar123]

10 hours ago, Charlie said:

One of my favorite books was the classic Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia by E. Digby Baltzell, about the differences between the two cities.

I took a sociology course with E Digby Baltzell back in the 70’s at Penn as an undergrad. He was a real crackpot as a prof.

[+ Charlie]

8 hours ago, dbar123 said:

I took a sociology course with E Digby Baltzell back in the 70’s at Penn as an undergrad. He was a real crackpot as a prof.

Good crackpot or bad crackpot? I never took a course with him.

[+ Charlie]

13 hours ago, socurious said:

Philadelphia is dirty and even dirtier than New York. I was dissapointed when I visited. This was during the pandemic  in 2021, though. That could be the reason. Can anybody confirm?

I lived in both cities over a period of 40 years (at times I even had a home in both at once), and I always considered Center City Philly cleaner than Manhattan.

[dbar123]

1 hour ago, Charlie said:

Good crackpot or bad crackpot? I never took a course with him.

Highly entertaining. I enjoyed listening to him ramble on about lower upper upper middle lower upper class

[socurious]

On 5/1/2023 at 11:35 AM, Charlie said:

I lived in both cities over a period of 40 years (at times I even had a home in both at once), and I always considered Center City Philly cleaner than Manhattan.

Manhattan is huge. It's not just Midtown or Downtown. Big mistake...

The filthiest area of NYC must Times Square and surroundings. I didn't get the impression Philadelphia's City center was any cleaner. There are even articles where Philly is ranked as one of dirtiest cities in the country. 

[+ Charlie]

I haven't been in either city since a few years before the pandemic, so I don't know if that has made a difference. BTW, I was comparing Center City Philadelphia (which is larger than just the commercial center, about 8 sq. mi.) to the different neighborhoods of Manhattan that I have lived and played in.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

On 4/28/2023 at 6:39 PM, socurious said:

Nobody is going to discuss which city is better?

Show me each city's budget, and their pension obligations, then we can discuss "better".  It's no fun to own property in a city on the verge of bankruptcy.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

6 hours ago, socurious said:

Manhattan is huge. It's not just Midtown or Downtown. Big mistake...

The filthiest area of NYC must Times Square and surroundings. I

My observation of Manhattan in 2022 was just the opposite.  I was pleasantly surprised by how "clean" touristy Times Square was.  My impression of Tribeca, East Village, Greenwich Village, and parts of the upper west side were of the everpresent stench of greasy/grimy sidewalks and subway platforms, and rats scurrying in and out of tree grates from underneath the sidewalk and piles of garbage each night for trash collection.  I stayed in three different hotels; one in Tribeca, one in Chelsea, one on 5th Avenue.  On my next trip back to New York City, I would stay in Chelsea or Times Square (as much as I dislike families of tourists, I dislike rats and the smell of urine and grease even more).

[socurious]

21 hours ago, Vegas777 said:

My observation of Manhattan in 2022 was just the opposite.  I was pleasantly surprised by how "clean" touristy Times Square was.  My impression of Tribeca, East Village, Greenwich Village, and parts of the upper west side were of the everpresent stench of greasy/grimy sidewalks and subway platforms, and rats scurrying in and out of tree grates from underneath the sidewalk and piles of garbage each night for trash collection.  I stayed in three different hotels; one in Tribeca, one in Chelsea, one on 5th Avenue.  On my next trip back to New York City, I would stay in Chelsea or Times Square (as much as I dislike families of tourists, I dislike rats and the smell of urine and grease even more).

Times Square itself is not so dirty. It's usually certain parts of the surroundings like 8th Avenue or sections of Broadway. You'll see many homeless on the west side of 42nd street near the Port  Authority too. New York hasn't really recovered from the pandemic as we speak but these parts were never the cleanest before. 

Chelsea has been decay in the last five years and the pandemic made it worst. This is more obvious along 7th and 8th Avenues if you are familiar. It also sucks that Crunch 23rd st. closed. That was the gayest gym in the city. I still remember being young/horny and purposely sticking around drinking my coffee to enjoy the muscle studs passing by in the way to the gym, woof! Friends tell me the lockers there were crazy haha. Hopefully Barton is opening soon in the same building. Nice.

Edited May 3, 2023 by socurious

[pubic_assistance]

On 5/3/2023 at 4:46 PM, socurious said:

Hopefully Barton is opening soon in the same building. Nice.

Back when Barton was there the first time, it was like a gay bathhouse. Everyone was hooking up. The steam room floor needed to be cleaned frequently because of all the ejaculate on the floor, making it slippery. Good times.

[socurious]

1 hour ago, pubic_assistance said:

Back when Barton was there the first time, it was like a gay bathhouse. Everyone was hooking up. The steam room floor needed to be cleaned frequently because of all the ejaculate on the floor, making it slippery. Good times.

Omggggg

 

[marylander1940]

On 4/30/2023 at 9:41 PM, socurious said:

Philadelphia is dirty and even dirtier than New York. I was dissapointed when I visited. This was during the pandemic  in 2021, though. That could be the reason. Can anybody confirm?

It's a blue collar city with some wealthy neighborhoods and suburbs. Worth visiting because of its historical importance and certainly the best kept secrets of the NE corridor considering how affordable it is to live there. 

Hotels are surprisingly expensive, I know many escorts who gave up on visiting that city.

When it comes to Boston is well know for flaky clients! 

[marylander1940]

On 5/2/2023 at 1:15 PM, socurious said:

Manhattan is huge. It's not just Midtown or Downtown. Big mistake...

The filthiest area of NYC must Times Square and surroundings. I didn't get the impression Philadelphia's City center was any cleaner. There are even articles where Philly is ranked as one of dirtiest cities in the country. 

are those cities clean or cleaner compared to the cities in your country?

Just curious!

[pubic_assistance]

13 minutes ago, marylander1940 said:

It's a blue collar city with some wealthy neighborhoods and suburbs.

Philadelphia WAS a blue collar city. Sadly, large swaths of the inner city are now ghettos of poverty and lifetime welfare families and crime.

The money left for the suburbs years ago. The area AROUND Philadelphia is some of the wealthiest in the country. Rittenhouse Square, Society Hill and the old colonial town around Franklin Square are really the only significantly upscale neighborhoods within the city limits anymore. But those exist as little islands of money in a landscape of run down row houses that have long lost their blue-collar European immigrant families who kept them clean.

[+ Charlie]

To some extent it depends upon what one considers "upscale." A lot of poor neighborhoods in the central city began gentrifying in the 1960s, and still have maintained their upper-middle class residents today. In former working class neighborhoods like Fitler Square and Queen Village, residential real estate is still pretty expensive. The little brick workman's row house near 23rd and South, built for the workers in the Kelly brickyards, that we bought in 1970 for $13,200, recently sold for $625K. From river to river and Spring Garden to South Street, it is hard to find any neighborhood in Center City that qualifies as a "ghetto of poverty." Even parts of West Philly around the universities, like Powelton, are relatively expensive. However, there are miles and miles of North and South Philly that are pretty sad to contemplate.

[pubic_assistance]

41 minutes ago, Charlie said:

there are miles and miles of North and South Philly that are pretty sad to contemplate.

Yes There is a strip down the middle that is livable. The majority of the North is a mess/ The majority of the South is a mess.

All the REAL money is in the surrounding suburbs and adjacent towns. Unlike NYC which has multiple neighborhoods right in Manhattan ( and Brooklyn & Queens ) where there are very wealthy residents, who make sure their neighborhoods are clean and relatively safe. ( My neighborhood hires private security to keep an eye on things ).

[socurious]

4 hours ago, marylander1940 said:

are those cities clean or cleaner compared to the cities in your country?

Just curious!

Yes they are. However, we don't have a homeless nor an addiction problem like exists here in North America or even some parts of Europe. The mentally ill will often have family members or known individuals that will take care of them. Seeing homeless people camping in parks is SUPER rare and I'd say actually unexistant. To us, one of the most shocking aspects of American society is actually homelessness and how most don't seem to care about others. In our culture even total strangers find a way to be housed by someone in case they loose their home.

Edited May 22, 2023 by socurious

[pubic_assistance]

3 minutes ago, socurious said:

To us, one of the most shocking aspects of American society is actually homelessness and how most don't seem to care about others. In our culture even total strangers find a way to be housed by someone in case they loose their home.

We USED TO care.

But a court decision declared mentally ill people could not be held against their will.

Self Determination is a Constitutional Right unless you've been proven to be an immediate threat to yourself or others.

So now mentally ill people are cast into the streets until they attack someone, steal or destroy property. In those cases they STILL don't end up with the care they need, they simply end up in jail sentences one after another.

It's a very sad situation, that is caught up in a bizarre argument that ends up doing more harm than good.

[socurious]

It's also that in poor societies people can occuppy state lands and built their homes out of anything in case they can't afford a house. So surely we don't have high levels of homelessness but indeed high levels of extreme poverty. Not everyone can't afford drugs and that's another critic point. Doesn't mean addiction is unexistant, though. It's just that is nothing like I see here in the States...

Edited May 22, 2023 by socurious

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

2 hours ago, socurious said:

It's also that in poor societies people can occuppy state lands and built their homes out of anything in case they can't afford a house. So surely we don't have high levels of homelessness but indeed high levels of extreme poverty. Not everyone can't afford drugs and that's another critic point. Doesn't mean addiction is unexistant, though. It's just that is nothing like I see here in the States...

Well said.  Money is not the answer to all problems.  Money merely magnifies what already exists.  If a person/society works hard and is charitable and is grateful and resourceful, then more money will bring prosperity and stability and more charity.  If a person has no self control, then more money leads to a downward spiral of more alcohol, drugs, etc.