A Taste of Rude Old New York in Present-Day Manhattan

Encountering the Specter of Eloise (or Her Mother) in a Park Avenue Chocolate Shop

Illustration by Hilary Knight from Eloise: A Book for Precocious Grown-ups by Kay Thompson (Simon & Schuster 1955, 1983)

After thirty-six years in Los Angeles, I sometimes forget the level of outside hatred for my home city, particularly since the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle began to lay off the insults in the early 2000s. It used to be common to see “Tinseltown” and “La-La Land” splashed around in those papers; now I can read an entire article about Los Angeles without seeing those nicknames, or the stale maxim about suburbs in search of a city. Instead the vitriol is online, and it is both personal and relentless.

First come the tourists who visited once, rented a car and, in a quixotic effort to see Griffith Park, the Getty Center AND Santa Monica on the same day, hit crosstown traffic. Despite their ludicrous lack of planning, Angelenos have some sympathy for these people: who wouldn’t be frustrated at rush hour on the 405? But just as often the jeers come from people who have never set foot in Los Angeles, having decided to judge it sight unseen. Their LA is a dystopic wasteland of tent cities and fireswept ruins, a Never- Never Land conjured from newsreels and “Blade Runner”, but we can live with it. “You hate us ‘cuz you ain’t us,” as one Instagram commenter put it. Some see it as a useful disincentive not only for tourists but potential transplants. Let’s let them think it’s terrible; that way they won’t move here,” the logic goes.

Recently I’ve traveled to Boston and New York for a birthday party, college reunion, museum exhibitions and theater. Strangers who asked where I was from had nothing but positive things to say about Los Angeles, just as they had in Japan this spring. It wasn’t until just before my departure last week that I encountered any LA bashing, and in a most unlikely place: the chocolate shop in the lobby of my Manhattan hotel. With time to kill and a hotel discount, I went in.