Allow me, if you please, to paint a picture for you.  This picture will be painted in the pinkest of hues, and the mintiest of greens.  These colors will burn brightly and they will burn shortly, and their breath-taking incandescence will be a momentary flicker of exalted heavenly light, before it passes into the drab nothingness of urban spleen.

It’s not that I did not recognize the beauty in the setting sun. On the contrary, I am an aesthete through and through, and it was, in fact, I who pointed the sunset out to her for that matter.  Make no mistake, I do love the sun, and I love it and celebrate it most in its last heroic throes of incandescent luminosity, just before it hides itself playfully and sleepily behind the rocky bluffs of Jersey each night. It is, however, something that I have grown accustomed to, living where I do, which at this point would be redundant to mention.  I love the sun un-selfishly, perhaps because I am nearly spoiled myself with it’s daily displays of radiant beauty.  The sun does indeed set in the Upper West Side.  My associate, on the other hand, who happens to be unfortunately stuck on the other side of the isle of Manhattan, is not often treated to such displays of celestial beauty.  I wouldn’t really know, as I hardly go over there, but I can only fain to imagine that, for most of the annual cycle, the lush thickness of my front yard, what some people call Central Park, would block the sun from setting for easterners. I should mention that this sunset was witnessed in early December.  The trees, bereft of their plentiful foliage, acted as a thin lattice and allowed the sun to run across the park, like a babe at play with pink ribbons in her hair and a rose balloon, only to smack, briefly, on the cold hard facade of a 5th Avenue apartment domicile utterly lacking poetry or zest. This temporal glitch that God has permitted, this sunset that I noticed with an air ennuyeuse, lifted for one fleeting moment my colleagues spirits, and for that I pity her.

I pity her for her attachment to the material world, so tragically endemic to her oriental (Eastern) neighbors.  I pity her for the state of rapture that she easily fell into when I pointed out that piecemeal effect of warm light on cold stone. I pity her above all for the sad fact that she is consigned to carry out her dreary days in the canyons of affected gentility, all pomp and no pleasure, all gold and no glory, with too much swank and not enough sunlight, as so many of her upper east side ilk do, ignorant the whole time of the beauty freely available across the park.

It would be the very act of cynical crudity for me to participate in this half-cocked “sunset-off” challenge that has been flung at me from across the park.  As an occidental gentleman, I appreciate the beauty around me by total immersion, but distant remove.  I bathe in its rosy-fingered beauty from morn ’til eve, I dip my head in the warm perfumed waters of sunlight, but I do not dare to take a sip. It’s mine to keep, so why take a photo? Were I to do that, it would be cheapened.  A photo is a commodity belonging to the exchange of the marketplace, the same marketplace that built the vulgar and ostentatious stone buildings of 5th avenue, and I am blessed not to fetishize that which is abundant and free to all of us blessed to call bloomingdale home.  No, I respectfully, and not without a smidgeon of smugness to which I am entitled, decline this challenge. Tant pis. I need not prove the glorious beauty of an Upper West Side sunset to anyone that does not live here. The manifold glories are self-evident, and to elaborate any further would detract. Suffice to say that from where I hang my chapeau, the light is pink, rosy, and warm. If, from time to time, a fortuitous ray of sunlight makes its way through the noble castles of CPW, runs along the tops of the trees of Central Park, and happens to illuminate, for one precious moment, an otherwise drab bit of architectural pretense of 5th Avenue, cherish it, celebrate it, do with it what ever your degraded soul requires; but doubt not that this small moment of joy which disappears into the thin air from which it was formed, came from the west, and thus the west is the source of that momentary beauty.  For it is not the sun itself that is beautiful, but the light which hits the Hudson, reflects off of the gleaming buildings of the Upper West Side, and illuminates the world for one glorious moment, never to return again.

I was just walking up Fifth Avenue from The Met with notorious Upper West Sider, Theodore Ward Barrow, when Mr. Barrow exclaimed, “Look at that pink!”  There was a beautifully intense pink glow on the pail stone buildings extending up the East Side of the Avenue.

We stopped for a moment of appreciation and I took out my camera to take a photo of the pink contrasting with a light green roof.  Mr. Barrow said, “If you post this on your blog you have to note that the Upper West Side has equally beautiful sunsets.”
Granted the sun sets in the West, and sometimes I have a view from my roof of The Upper West Side backlit by a brilliant glow but I can’t say I’ve ever really been struck by the sun setting while actually on The Upper West Side.  I’m sure there’s a decent view on the Hudson, but anyway, I’ll have to see it to believe it.  Therefore I challenge Theodore Ward Barrow to a sunset-off!

by Theodore Barrow

Your response to my point has set the tone of the dialogue between the two of us: breezy and sugar-coated yet mordant and vicious. Not unlike a molasses-covered glob of feces shat from the fiery sphincter of Cerberus, the three-headed hound of the Upper East Side. You are a worthy adversary, despite your blue-blood, and your argument, albeit fallacious, was a pleasure to read in its frivolity.

Nonetheless, your words do smite, not in the sense that they bear any semblance to what I and most sane New Yorkers consider to be self-evident truth, but because, feeble as your attempt is, you besmirch my beloved berg, and that I will NOT stand for. No, madame, I do not abide wanton and haphazard insults flung across my dear (Central) Park, insults whose empty meaning bespeaks nothing more than the folly of idle privilege. You see, while we Upper West Siders may revel in watching the sun set over the Hudson river, submerging its golden light behind the grillade of bucolic boughs of Riverside park, enjoying our picnic baskets from Zabar’s, we do not take such insults lightly. As one of our many accolades said in his ode to the (soon to be) Upper West Side, “We prefer to fight you more like a man, and beat you down, with our hands, and body slam you in the Wild Wild West”.

Be that as it may, I will show you the meaning of delicacy and restraint, if not to say modesty. You see, although I’m quite certain that the Upper West Side could beat up the Upper East Side, (who would really win in a fist fight, Jon McEnroe or Brooke Astor?) I choose to take the high road, as is the intellectual tradition of our neighborhood, and keep this beef verbal.Oh, how so like an Upper East Sider to at once try and hoard, not to mention take credit for, all of the perks of New York, while at the same time bragging about how rich they are. Real classy. My adversary quotes the following passage in Wikipedia:

The Upper West Side is often characterized as more intellectual and creative, in contrast to the old money and conservative values of the Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States.”

While this may happen to be true, just this once, I do not think that bolstering one’s argument with references from Wikipedia is a very strong defense. I cite the example of the New Yorker running an article on Wikipedia in July of this year, in which one of their sources, purportedly a tenured professor of religion at a private university turned out to be nothing more than a degree-less 24 year old named Ryan Jordan. Is this really where you want to be getting your information? For all I know, you could have been the one to add The Met to the Upper East Side’s list of cultural attractions. There is nothing dependable about citing Wikipedia, and if I really wanted to play dirty, I’d go and edit the Wikipedia page for the Upper West Side, but that would not fit in with the “more intellectual and creative” nature of my Western comrades.

Instead, I will throw another quote back at you: “they [UWSiders] represented new money who thumbed their collective noses at established society. Who needed Mrs. Astor anyway? They [WE] created their [OUR] own society, and in the process set a nonconforming tradition on the West Side that continued for many years” (Kisseloff, You Must Remember This, p. 147).

You know what that means? We don’t need you guys. And why would we, anyway? While we may have come from new money, this was new money begot by hard work, sweat, and toil, and not the exploitation (read: Carnegie’s massacre of striking miners) of, say, mining interests in Pennsylvania. No, we are a neighborhood of artists and musicians, doctors and lawyers, Jews and lapsed Jews, and we don’t have any need for the moldy gentility of the east side of 5th Avenue. Like I said before, we’re just fine with our park and our museum, thanks.

My East Side opponent attempts to extend, somewhat laterally, her argument, with a quibble over semantics: “East Side and West Side are geographical designations. They extend so far up and down Manhattan that there is no consistent cultural common ground between them. However, The Upper East Side and The Upper West Side are neighborhoods.” While I do know the difference between geographical designations and neighborhoods, I also recognize, something that she fails to do, the fact that “The Upper East Side” and “THE UPPER (case) WEST SIDE” represent collective neighborhoods. On the East side, you have 3 zip codes, 10021, 10028, and 10029. You have neighborhoods like Carnegie Hill, Yorkville, um, Museum Mile (with the exception of one museum). Over here on the West, we have Lincoln Center, Upper West Side Proper, Higher Upper West Side Proper (above 96th Street) and Morningside Heights, not to mention the Eastern Upper West Side, which of course includes that afforementioned lush bit of greenery and culture between Central Park West and 5th Avenue. You see? While it may seem like the Upper East Side and Upper West Side are designations of neighborhoods themselves, they designate the area, as in land mass, where the Upper Eastern and Upper Western neighborhoods can be found. “Side”, I assume, refers to “Side of 5th Avenue”. I need not back this up with any more substantial evidence, because it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Both neighborhoods span 7 avenues on either side of 5th Ave, ours just happens to include some prime real-estate for lounging in the grass and furthering your cultural knowledge. That’s the cultural common ground. What do you want me to say? Tough shit, richies.

What I find to be most irksome about this argument is the simple, unabashed gall of your neighborhood to even try and claim Central Park and the Met. What’s wrong, don’t you have enough already? What, you’re not happy with the Frick, The Jewish Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, the Barbour by Peter Elliot Store, The Whitney, and the Guggenheim? What do you want the Met for too, you little effrontery-filled spoiled brats? It’s bad enough that we let all you philanthropists unload the masterpieces that you looted from impoverished European countries during the 19th century in our Museum. We’re still paying for that. If some greedy Upper East Sider hadn’t carelessly bought the Euphronious crater without properly doing provenance research, we wouldn’t have to be returning it now. But no, here we are, having to show our asses to the world, covering for you, and you don’t even have the decency to be grateful.

What’s next? You want the Dakota? The Beresford? Oh, how ’bout we just give you St. John the Divine, would that make you happy? I don’t think so. You see, there’s these little things called “common sense” and “geography” that support our claim to the Met and Central Park, and that, my opulent silver-spoon-fed blue-blooded neighbors across 5th Avenue, is something that money can’t buy.

It has been an exercise in restraint and modesty, leaving this blasphemy unchecked for so long. But my faith in your faith is strong and the truth will out. Mr. Barrow has made a valiant and creative effort in claiming The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park for the West Side, based on their locations West of Fifth Avenue. I do have a soft spot for logic, but his is the logic of a child who takes the few teachings he possesses as literal.

Not everything is so black and white, or East and West. If you ask any “sane” New Yorker, I believe they will tell you that The Met is on the Upper East Side and they will certainly say that Central Park is neither part of the Upper East nor the Upper West Side. Wikipedia, which is becoming an increasingly more accurate reflection of fact as well as general consensus lists The Metropolitan Museum of Art under Landmarks and Cultural Institutions of The Upper East Side.

Although I haven’t taken the trouble to find a document explicitly setting forth Central Park’s neutralness, I challenge Mr. Barrow to find one historical document which specifically supports his claims about The Met and Central Park belonging to The Upper West Side.

In researching my rebuttal I have realized that Mr. Barrow’s argument highlights an ambiguity in the demarcation of our two neighborhoods. I believe this confusion lies in the fact that the terms Upper East Side and Upper West Side actually have nothing to do with the more general terms of East Side and West Side.

East Side and West Side are geographical designations. They extend so far up and down Manhattan that there is no consistent cultural common ground between them.  However, The Upper East Side and The Upper West Side are neighborhoods.

From Wikipedia’s Manhattan page:
The Upper West Side is often characterized as more intellectual and creative, in contrast to the old money and conservative values of the Upper East Side, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the United States.

Yes, laugh it up. But my point is clear and simple. Mr. Barrow tries to confuse us by subsituting a geographical demarcation for a cultural one, and his vigor only reveals what he as an Upper West Sider, envies us on The U.E.S.

-Rebecca

by Theodore Barrow

I’ve been all over New York City, which is to say strictly Manhattan, from Battery to Fort Tyron, Clinton to Norfolk, Gay Street to Jay street, and it all pales in comparison to the glorious Upper West Side. Yes, that grid of fantastic beauty that exquisitely stretches from 59th street up to Columbia, dripping with dank gloomy doorman buildings and brownstones that look like they were carved by Praxitiles himself (if he worked in mud and did chintzy ornament on brick), chock full of parks, malls, Sturgeon shops, and universities, this is truly the best neighborhood. Why, without even leaving the West Side, I can buy clothes at Filene’s Basement, an over-priced smoky bagel at H & H, trip out on dinosaurs, and, if I’m feeling hip, just skip over to the Met for the latest, which is to say 16 years old, Damien Hirst sensation.

What’s that? Yeah, that’s right, I said it. I said that I can go over to the Met, which means crossing central park, and not leave my beloved Upper West Side. This may seem like a surprise to most New Yorkers, but I’m not most New Yorkers. Shit, I’m not even any New Yorker, I’m an Upper West Sider, and damn proud of it.

That’s why I’m claiming the Met for the Upper BEST Side. You Upper Yeast Siders don’t even go to the museum, anyway. You can’t be bothered to cross 5th ave, which by the way is the OFFICIAL east/west dividing line, to visit the Met because you know, deep down, that it is a West Side Institution. You see those big blocks of un-carved stone on the top of the four entablatures? Those are actually hide outs for an elite force of militant Upper West Siders, ready at any moment to shower you Snobby East siders with bagels and lox, if ever this inevitable east/west beef really jumps off. Be warned.

Also, you see all those faces on the cornices? All Upper West Siders, staring defiantly at the neighborhood that they didn’t want to live in anyway. But you Upper East Siders probably wouldn’t have noticed that, because you’re too busy eating over-priced diner food, shopping at Dean and Deluca, and living in crappy high-rises, constantly looking over your shoulders for the errant plane-crashing Baseball-playing novice pilots who might come careening towards your windows at any moment. What kind of a way to live is that?!?

Just think of the met as like a giant triumphal arch for the Upper West Side. It looks Roman, doesn’t it? At least French. And that’s what the Upper West Side is like, the best parts of Rome and France, without all the piss stench. How do you get there, here’s the directions. You cross 5th ave, go through the Met, take this winding little path under a couple quaint little arches, tip your fedora to the Belvedere castle, and you end up at the Museum of Natural History facing Teddy Roosevelt, on his steed, ready to kick your lily East Side Ass. All of our museums and institutions face the Upper East Side with defiance and aggression. Passive aggression, but aggression nonetheless. What you got, Easties? You can keep the Frick, and it’s little upstart the Carnegie Manison, you can keep that slanted coil of an architects ego, the Poogenheim, and I’ll proudly keep the Met, the statue of Teddy Roosevelt, and Central park. Thanks. Thanks for nothing, jerks.

My final point? Well, just look at a map. Moving from East to west, you have York ave, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Lexington, Park, and Madison. Thats 7 fuckin’ Avenues for the upper Beast side. What do we have on the West side? West End, Broadway, Amsterdam, Columbus, CPW (all much more romantic and evocative sounding street names, if I do say so myself) Central (I call it Western) Park, The Met, and 5th. All the lakes, the meadows, the ramble, and the rugged beauty of the park belongs to us. You guys get The Ralph Lauren mansion and Carnegie Hill, I guess.