My point is when the movie was over, I felt old and out-of-touch. Not because the film involved a man not much older than I was trying to fit it at a fashion start-up, but because the entire movie was set in Brooklyn. Every scene. Brooklyn. I knew nothing of Brooklyn beyond Brooklyn Heights and the River Cafe. To me, Brooklyn was somewhere you didn't want to live because it was hard to get a cab to take you there late at night.
When I lived in New York, I lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was at the time very in. How did I know that? Because I could not step out of my apartment without running into a film crew. There were always production trucks parked somewhere in the neighborhood. Often they were from Law & Order. If as many dead bodies showed up in my neighborhood in real life as they did on Law & Order, rents would have plummeted. Well, probably not. Rents never plummet in New York. Let's just say it wouldn't have been good.
More often the filming was for movies about young professionals. Green Card. Baby Boom. You've Got Mail. When Harry Met Sally. Even the Ghostbusters were, in their own minds at least, professionals. Certainly, Sigourney Weaver's character was. All these successful fictional characters were my neighbors. Three Men and a Baby filmed a short walk down Central Park West from my apartment. I remember running into the twins who played the baby on the street and all the male stars in the park. A lot of the other movies were shot much closer. I was annoyed to find out while I was on an all-day conference call in my apartment Jack Nicolson had been filming Wolf on my corner. The Upper West Side was a cool place to be.
At the movies, I got used to recognizing not just streets but restaurants. All these shiny characters would sit at the same table where I sat. The Upper West Side may not have been the hippest place to live but it had a certain cachet, a certain style. I loved it.
I had not been living in New York for many years when I saw The Intern. I had heard about the move to Brooklyn. As a matter of fact, I made a business call to the only partially renovated building in Williamsburg in the early 1990s. The guy who lived on top of the mostly empty building where he ran his business told me to buy a building. What happened to Soho is about to happen to Williamsburg. I ignored his advice. I missed the boom. I have never actually been to the hip Williamsburg. For all I know, Williamsburg may have become somewhat passe. There might be a more hip Brooklyn neighborhood. I wouldn’t be the right person to ask.
So watching The Intern brought home to me that my time had passed. Sometimes, I like to revisit the restaurants I loved in the eighties and nineties when they were the hot spots in town, but my enjoyment is always tinged with a little sadness. My favorite restaurant and I are both a hold-over from the past. Ironically, it is owned by Robert DeNiro.
When I lived in New York, I lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was at the time very in. How did I know that? Because I could not step out of my apartment without running into a film crew. There were always production trucks parked somewhere in the neighborhood. Often they were from Law & Order. If as many dead bodies showed up in my neighborhood in real life as they did on Law & Order, rents would have plummeted. Well, probably not. Rents never plummet in New York. Let's just say it wouldn't have been good.
More often the filming was for movies about young professionals. Green Card. Baby Boom. You've Got Mail. When Harry Met Sally. Even the Ghostbusters were, in their own minds at least, professionals. Certainly, Sigourney Weaver's character was. All these successful fictional characters were my neighbors. Three Men and a Baby filmed a short walk down Central Park West from my apartment. I remember running into the twins who played the baby on the street and all the male stars in the park. A lot of the other movies were shot much closer. I was annoyed to find out while I was on an all-day conference call in my apartment Jack Nicolson had been filming Wolf on my corner. The Upper West Side was a cool place to be.
At the movies, I got used to recognizing not just streets but restaurants. All these shiny characters would sit at the same table where I sat. The Upper West Side may not have been the hippest place to live but it had a certain cachet, a certain style. I loved it.
I had not been living in New York for many years when I saw The Intern. I had heard about the move to Brooklyn. As a matter of fact, I made a business call to the only partially renovated building in Williamsburg in the early 1990s. The guy who lived on top of the mostly empty building where he ran his business told me to buy a building. What happened to Soho is about to happen to Williamsburg. I ignored his advice. I missed the boom. I have never actually been to the hip Williamsburg. For all I know, Williamsburg may have become somewhat passe. There might be a more hip Brooklyn neighborhood. I wouldn’t be the right person to ask.
So watching The Intern brought home to me that my time had passed. Sometimes, I like to revisit the restaurants I loved in the eighties and nineties when they were the hot spots in town, but my enjoyment is always tinged with a little sadness. My favorite restaurant and I are both a hold-over from the past. Ironically, it is owned by Robert DeNiro.
© 2024 Jane Kelly
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