What do you miss about NYC?

The following question was posed on the New York Times' City Room blog today: What do you miss most about Old New York? A recent emigre to the Big Apple, I was curious to know what the old timers (though not so old - they were reading blogs, after all) would say. The responses ranged from the humorous - "Myself. When I could afford to live there," - to the ridiculous - "The whores on Seventh Avenue."

I was surprised at how many people longed for the Good Old Days, one man saying he missed "The bar in Sheepshead Bay, where clams were a $1 a dozen and PBR at $o.35." Others wished for the time when New York hadn't been spoiled by the "rich white people" at NYU and on the Upper West Side, and when neighborhoods had felt like neighborhoods. One lady seemed almost desperate: "Doesn’t anybody care anymore?"

I guess, as a newcomer to NYC and as someone who was only dimly aware of New York before 2001, the complaints about the present in favor of the Good Old Days seem strange. I can understand, for example, when my own grandfather longs for the simplicity of his countryside childhood. But a New Yorker who complains about the hustle and bustle? I was under the impression that all New Yorkers loved the city's newfound dynamism - that's why people (including me) move to New York in such big numbers.

To me, New York's "Good Old Days" seem impossibly remote and out of place in 2008. I can't imagine the city ever stepping backwards and trying to take itself out of the limelight. It's the thing that you either love or you hate. You feel the energy or hate the crowds, or some combination. But a New York filled with quiet neighborhoods? I wonder if anyone would still want to come here.

Perhaps this responder came closest to the enduring definition of New York. He writes: "The city is always changing and that hasn’t changed."