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Visit Naomi Wolf’s Substack.
I am in New York again, and I am sending you this postcard from a city I love and have loved; from a broken city. Broken; yet struggling to reimagine itself, as it has so many times before.
Are we better? Are we lost? Are we changed, changed utterly?
Here are some images, some moments, for you.
###
We are post-Tower of Babel now.
The culture of New York is now completely fragmented, and this happened through language.
It used to be that while there were a million different languages and accents here, everyone was trying to communicate as best he or she could — all the time. New Yorkers were famous for this! Any given day was thrilling, because random strangers, from whatever part of the world, would say something silly or funny or wise to you in passing, and everyone would manage to get the gist of each other, whatever anyone’s level of English. We were all present in the joy of being Americans — New Yorkers!— together.
That commonality is simply gone. Culturally, this city could now be anywhere in the world — any globalist, polyglot city. The culture that was New York has been smashed right through.
This is the globalist play, right? The globalists understand better even than we had done, how precious a specific culture is, and they understand that if you throw enough people at it from everywhere in the word, with no acculturating processes or numerical limits, there is eventually no culture left there at all.
English-speakers are no better than anyone else, of course, but there is value in a shared culture that can only come about via a shared language; indeed, a lingua franca; national language.
The fact that somehow, all at once, English has collapsed as even the remotest goal of New York City common speech, and that speaking English seems not to be important at all to many of the newest immigrants, means that there is a loneliness and sadness and boredom and homesickness, involved with getting around New York City and its boroughs — journeys that used to be thrilling because you met people from everywhere, through their English.
Somehow it has suddenly become acceptable completely to ignore people in ordinary human interactions, and not even to try to communicate with them in even very basic English.
I got into an Uber to go from Manhattan to Brooklyn, and the Nigerian driver kept speaking into his headphone in Yoruba (I think); he barely acknowledged me in English once I entered his car. Gone are the days of deep philosophical discussions with New York City cab drivers, of whatever origins. This driver kept on speaking Yoruba (I think) to the invisible presence in his headphones, as I left his car.
I entered the supermarket near our Brooklyn apartment, and the young lady checking out my groceries kept speaking in Spanish to her colleagues throughout the entire checkout process, not interrupting her conversation with them once. She did not say a word to me in English, though I was friendly throughout. That linguistic iciness never used to happen.
Even recent immigrants with very little English in New York used gladly to say “Good morning!” or “Have a nice day!” — whatever chit-chat their language levels allowed — as recently as just a few months ago. We were all participating in a common linguistic community, at whatever level anyone happened to be.
Now that effort of participation seems to have simply been dropped in many quarters. I don’t know how or why cultures suddenly shift in these ways or why the prestige of English suddenly collapsed; but the fact that many people in the City now have given up trying to communicate in English, and tend to ignore those who do not speak their languages, creates an anomie, a fractured civitas; atomization. And it weakens us as a city. We cannot speak to one another in a crisis, let alone create culture, dance, or music together, or even spark romance or build families together; we can no longer have those moments of humor or goofiness or the deep many-cultured into one-cultured exchanges, that I miss so much.
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There is a marked degradation in what can only be called aesthetics, and a great deal of erasure of what had been the presence of the treasures of Western culture.
There is almost no fashion.
Almost no young women are wearing dresses, or pretty blouses or skirts. “Pretty” seems pretty unfashionable right now. And “feminine” is totally out of the window. Most trendy young women are wearing wide-legged slacks and chunky army boots; there are plenty of piercings. There is a bit of a dominatrix thing going on as well, with some young women wearing tiny shorts and black thigh-high leather boots. Young women now sit, when they wear slacks, with their legs wide apart, and fashion images on billboards are full of models in this pose. I am not a prude but perhaps I am old-fashioned, as my grandmother taught me that doing this was unladylike, and I do find the repetition of this image — of young women everywhere shown with legs splayed — degrading, in relation to the idea of the feminine.
I took the subway on Wednesday up to Harlem. I was rather proud of myself, as I had hesitated to take subways again since the fallout from “Defund the Police,” one of the dumbest movements in US history. I was edgy though.
The subways no longer have Western cultural markers that I recognize. There were city-funded “art” panels that showed a red Chinese dragon. There was an “art” panel in which a child playing an instrument seemed to have three horns on her head. There were no ads any longer — at least not in the cars in which I rode or in the stations I saw — for museum exhibits or concerts involving our Western classical past. No Impressionists, no Mozart. The Brooklyn Museum had a range of exhibits. Many seemed to me disturbing, or random. Others were critiques of received history.
“In the Now: Gender and Nation in Europe,” above.
I don’t mean to be a troglodyte, but only one exhibit – about the Renaissance sculptor Luca Della Robbia — even referenced our Western artistic or art-historical tradition. (Exhibits on design and on period rooms, both more utilitarian than is art itself, were allowed to remain). If you are a child going to the Brooklyn Museum on a field trip, you will literally have no idea what the Western artistic heritage has been, but you will learn that it is bad.
Later that day, a subway station through which I had passed, Hoyt-Schermerhorn, was the scene of a brutal gunfight, in which the initial shooter was badly wounded. Social media buzzed that afternoon with video of New Yorkers cowering, some praying, on the floor of the subway car — as the shooter paced about.
#####
When I got off the subway, upon taking in 125th Street, I was disoriented. When I’d last been here — in 2019 – it was an urban crossroads that was sleek and polished, and electric with pride.
At that time, money had been pouring in to Harlem. Many wealthy people had moved uptown and, while I acknowledge that gentrification can be a mixed blessing, the neighborhood was prosperous; in many areas, flush. New businesses were opening; “Restaurant Row”, which features such legendary soul food restaurants as Sylvia’s and The Red Rooster, sparkled. The Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture showcased documentaries and exhibits. The resplendent history and culture of Harlem at that time were not being erased, but celebrated. People flocked from all over the city to Harlem because of the vibrancy of the culture, and of the area’s remarkable history.
Now, I could scarcely believe my eyes. A dozen haunted-looking homeless people, with the skeletal builds and splayed teeth of meth addicts, wandered around the broad sidewalk, asking everyone who emerged from the subway for money. Their mouths were so distorted, and their eyes so glazed, that they could barely speak. The construction boom pre-”pandemic” seemed to have come to a standstill. Windows were boarded up. Trash and graffiti were everywhere. More than anything, the vibe, the pride, the exuberance — were gone, or at least very subdued.
An old friend of Brian’s and of mine met me, and we went to Sylvia’s for a drink. I mentioned that the city seemed broken.
“Broken in what way?” he asked, genuinely interested.
Broken in what way? The unanswerable question.
In nine million ways.
I think if one lives here day to day, the shocking decline of the city is not so obvious. But to me, the change in the city was like seeing a beloved friend, who had formerly been beautiful and enchanting and witty, in a hospital bed, on an IV drip, half-unconscious.
#####
I met two other old friends from the “Before Times”, on another night, for dinner, at a Mexican restaurant on Sixth Avenue, near Canal street.
All of Canal Street, that formerly irrepressible commercial thoroughfare, had been scrubbed of the little mom-and-pop shops, the Chinese restaurants and inexpensive jewelers, the stores selling knockoff watches and handbags.
I had observed in 2021 how Chinatown, all the way up to Canal Street, had been systematically driven into bankruptcy or collapse, small business closing after small business, during — and by — the “lockdowns.” My phone is full of photographs of shuttered storefronts that were driven to close down by having been forced to suspend trading for eight months.
I knew then, and wrote about it at that time, that this was sure to turn out to be a real estate play.
The big developers had never previously managed to get their hands on Chinatown — with its prime real estate that was in the hands of small landlords — because the local culture and community and the small businesses that sustained the small landlords, had been too strong.
But now, the area, block after block, was like a chessboard that had been intentionally swept clear of pieces.
What I saw now was what I knew in 2021 I would eventually see.
Gleaming new storefronts, with $400 jackets and $700 shoes, all curated and lit up like sculptures. Little art galleries, selling $12,000-$25,000 works of modern art to wealthy, young, hip collectors. Chain bubble tea shops. Chain hotels.
The big developers had gotten at last what they had for so long desired.
My two friends and I huddled in the bright, yellow-painted interior of the restaurant. It was a bit dingy and a bit outdated, with cheerful travel posters and strings of lights. It was, we agreed, just the same as it had been in the “Before Times.”
We were glad to have our inexpensive fish tacos and fajitas together. We were all three of us, refugees in our own city now.
These two had been isolated and exiled by their friends, just as I had been by mine, during the “pandemic.” They, like I myself, were unvaccinated. They, like I myself, had tried to warn our friends and loved ones about the injections, and had for their pains been vilified and shamed and scorned. I admire them so much because they stayed consistent and patient, and approached everyone —- and even endured that experience of being rejected — with open hearts and with love.
Now we three leaned toward one another, the strings of lights creating a festive glow around us. In low, urgent voices, we caught up with one another; meaning, we caught up with the illnesses and deaths in our extended circle.
One friend has a neurological disorder. One friend’s sister died in her sleep. One friend’s wife died of a heart attack while jogging. One friend has pancreatic cancer. One younger woman had a “mini-stroke.” (Certain details are altered to protect identities).
I described to them a dinner party of highly vaccinated people, which I had attended recently, in which three of the twelve people present had hand tremors.
We all spoke eventually about how no one had ever apologized for how we had been treated, or said that we had been right. But we all agreed that we did not need the apologies and we did not wish to be right.
We just wanted our friends to be well.
Death and disability were all around us; descending like the darkness around a campfire.
####
When I got home, I walked past a new cannabis store that has recently opened up. There are cartoony, bright, delicious-looking ads on the outside of the storefront, that offer peanut butter marshmallow cannabis, or tropical fruit cannabis, or Coco Crispy cannabis. These are exactly like the bright ads for sugary cereals that are aimed at kids.
Just as I was thinking, “Those cannabis ads are aimed at kids,” three kids — who looked as if they were about thirteen; two boys and a girl — glanced both ways, drew themselves up as if they were about to do something really cool and fun and grown-up, and went on inside.
####
I love this city still. I love it.
I do not understand what is happening.
And yet I also do.
In prayer today, I asked God what was happening. I figured I might as well go right to the top with my questions.
“Why do evil and suffering seem to be everywhere? How long will this last?”
I took away from that time in prayer, an understanding or a sense (impossible to explain how prayer works; who knows how these insights emerge in our minds?) that we really are now walking through “the time of Satan.” That was literally the phrase that surfaced (or descended) into my mind.
And I understood that “there is no way out but through”, which is a phrase that Brian likes to use when trying to describe to me what it is like to be in combat.
It’s a time of shadow. There is literally a shadow across the path of humanity.
Psalm 23:4 speaks of “the valley of the Shadow of Death”; and here we are, it seems, at last.
It’s a time of metaphysical reversals, and generalized, not just personal, sickness.
It is a time when things that are usually in the crevices of human experience, and things that are at least metaphorically penned underground, have been permitted out, to walk among us; to organize institutions as they will; to manage events as they wish.
Maybe demons really do exist.
Maybe demons always were — the people who would sell off their fellow human beings’ bodies, or traffic children; or poison their fellow human beings intentionally.
Maybe demons always were — the people who would erase and mock what is beautiful and noble in the works of men and women; or invite children to enter alluring interiors, to drug their growing consciousnesses.
Maybe the shadow of death, along with the light, and maybe these demons, along with the humans, have always been right here in this dimension with us; right alongside us.
Maybe right now, walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death means that we are simply being allowed —
To see them for what they really are.
None of this is unique to New York.. This cultural Balkan is action has been going on for quite a while, and every time those of us on the English-First side of the argument pointed out this end result of not requiring a national language we were told it was racist nativist bigotry. So, here we are, exactly where we deserve to be now. So fractured without the most foundational commonality of a language we have gone tribal. Culture being downstream of language how can anyone be surprised at how it is becoming degraded as well?
Sad-but beautifully written. In reading this, I was thinking why did you leave this place you so loved? Was it your work or someone you loved or what? I read that many businesses and people have left New York. I’ve
talked to several people from N.Y. who are now living near me and told me they were gettin’ out while the
gettin’ was good. Born and raised they told me, I was thinking -these are good people. If the good people are leaving-who’s left?
The people they are escaping from, you know the one’s who loot and assault.
Perhaps people can finally agree to an immigration pause, at the very least. There is nothing racist about that. We like and accept everyone, but the problem is that this is not reciprocated in the same way by most other groups. We are doing this to ourselves by buying into the “nation of immigrants” misdirection. It is all a globalist plot to end Western Civilization. When did we accept the idea that Western people should give their countries away to the world? This is insane.
I think it’s called “fundamental transformation”, and now an Obama judge said they have “the right to bear arms”, the people with no background checks will now carry.
Yet, as a native born citizen for over seven decades, in Maryland, I still have to wade through a morass of regulations and requirements to purchase a firearm for protection in our rapidly disintegrating society. But if was an alien who broke the law just to get into the country and whose identity and background, and criminal record cannot be verified, no problem. What a ridiculous country this has become. I don’t even recognize it.
Naomi, I can tell you as a born and bred NYer that NY has most definitely lost its mojo and certainly its vitality. Gone are the days of what made NY an icon. It is nothing more than a totalitarian, leftist sh*thole. Naomi, the few NYers that are left donot refer to trains as subways.
Moving through the tunnel that appears to only get darker as we inch a long, slowly losing our hope of there being light ahead.
Broken by lockdown and deliberate division by the UN which has a department whose task is to instigate mass immigration. The UN owns the WHO which deliberately created the hysteria and is pumping chemicals into people to stop population growth and save the planet.
But we don’t have to (and certainly should not) listen to whatever the UN babbles on about. The fact is that we are engaged in national, cultural, intellectual, and political seppuku
Very nice.
Good insights .
Yes, Virginia, there is a Satan.
Fortunately, there is also St.Michael.
Pray with me:
St. Michael, the Archangel, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. Together with the Holy Host and by the power of God cast into Hell Satan and all his demons and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
We need some serious St. Michael right now…..and he better bring his “A” game.
Very apropos! In my morning Bible reading and prayer, I prayed for the Lord to come today, asap.
Although this world has wonders (my wife and I briefly saw a Florida panther last night while riding our tandem), the distress of humanity on every hand is like a pressure that does not relent.
“Even so come, Lord Jesus.”
Amen.
And take the opportunity to tell friends and family about the Risen Christ, our mediator and advocate.
An ex-New Yorker myself with fond memories of the city, I can relate to your feelings. Thanks for expressing them so well. We’re heading downhill.. worldwide. Here are a few words of comfort from our Savior to come, our only hope:
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity … people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory..” Luke 21.
At His (soon) return, will set up His kingdom here on earth, the foretold 1000-year reign that we’ve been praying for for 2000 years (“your kingdom come, your will be done…”). Peace and the return of the Law will follow.
As for the signs in sun, moon and starts… Incidentally, the solar eclipse on April 8 will complete the form of an Aleph-Tav (Hebrew for the Greek alpha-omega; see Revelation 1:8; 21:6; Isaiah 41:4…) over the United States, the last of 3 eclipses begun in 2017 = over a 7-year period. All the planets will be lined up that day.
National repentance would save us, but is unlikely to happen. Individual repentance will.
Naomi,
You & I spoke on the phone maybe two years ago. I was a partner with Al Regnery at Republic Book Publishers and I had reached out to you about your projected book. I am reaching out to you again (this time from Florida where I now live) to say your observations here are prophetic. Something has happened and very few people have noticed. As I read your lament, I thought of Fitzgerald and his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. I also thought of another posting I read this morning that something like 80% of those surveyed believe “religion is losing its influence over the US culture. Anyway, I would love to reconnect with you in some way because I think there is a commonality between your witness and my own (In my case it took a corporate bankruptcy to wake me up to the reality of the existence of God, putting me on a very different path than I had been walking before. I hope we can connect in some way
If you feminists had not emasculated men for 6 decades, this never could have happened. “Safety first” and “better safe than sorry” were the words of doom for our society. Unqualified women and feminized men were all over this mess, no one can question them, this is the result.
I agree. She is waking up and I believe is starting to see that this is the result of liberalism and hatred for our nations sovereignty.
The problem with emancipatory movements is not that they are uncalled-for (how many people seriously think that women make worse doctors than men? yet medical practice has only been open to women since Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1850’s) but that they are self-perpetuating. So when all of the genuine grievances have been addressed, more demands are formulated, and the solutions become asymmetrical. This is as true for race and class as for gender. There may even have been a time when the UN was, overall, an influence for good; certainly there was a time when the unions dealt with real, rather than imagined, exploitation.
A perfect society, where everyone’s potential is fully realised, is not an option this side of Heaven. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t seek to be as helpful and as just as we can – but we can’t afford to live our entire lives off a Santa Claus wishlist. where everyone’s need is somehow met without the obligations that this entails becoming disproportionately burdensome for anyone.
You cannot overwhelm a city, state or nation with multi millions of non-English speakers and expect anything more than Naomi Wolf found in NYC. Before as foreigners came into NYC as individuals, families, or small groups, and it was essential that they work, and insert themselves into the city, in order to “fit in”! Now that isn’t necessary. So many are there, that they can, for the most part, maintain almost every portion of their day to day lives, making few changes other than location, and an occasional sentence in English. Now we are made to feel as if it is “we” who are in a foreign land.
Yes, there is a fine line between immigration and colonization, and I think it’s been breached.
This morning I prayed, as I do throughout my day, to understand the evil that seems to surround me. I need to remind myself that God is great and in control. It is hard when I see what is. Then I read your column which spoke to my condition. Thank you.
As depressing a picture as Ms. Wolf paints, it is always refreshing to read the observations of someone, formerly on the left, who now sees things for what they are. I was once firmly planted on the left myself. Life seemed vibrant and interesting, in its hedonistic way. Now I understand that what made leftism “work” was the firm underpinnings of boring old western civilization values. Once you see this, the lens of perception changes entirely.
The correct term for this purposeful national cultural degradation is “Sovietization”.
The Soviets didn’t deliberately import “other cultures” and give them free stuff to encourage more. This is more like a seige.
“Broken in WHAT way”?? Broken in the DEMOcrat way!! When you see the MISERY of the street people – THANK A DEMOcrat!! When you see the shuttered storefronts due to rampant crime – THANK A DEMOcrat! When you see the degradation pointed at children – THANK A DEMOcrat!! And those FRIENDS with various physical ailments including premature deaths – THANK A DEMOcrat!!! Think back to when the city was as you remembered it and think of WHO was making the SANE decisions there and across Our Nation – if you voted for a DEMOcrat then THANK YOURSELF!!!
The common denominator in all dystopian cities is Democrat control.
Wolf is the proverbial monkey typing Hamlet.Please, no more from this self-absorbed buffoon.
What makes you say that? Do you have a deep regard for criminal aliens and people who want to colonize?
This is very surprising. Who would have thought that a hard core Manhattan Feminist would start talking like a bible thumper.
What next?
Anyway, I hope she finds comfort with those she loves.
Diversity does not work.
NYC is gone – I don’t see it coming back thanks to HIGH LEVEL OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND INCOMPETENT GOVERNANCE. As for speaking English, if you go into certain neighborhoods – and I speak Spanish – you will need a translator.
I have many of the same feelings, except for the part about an open heart and love towards those who pushed the lockdowns, masks and clot shots. I can tell you for certain none of those people had any compassion for us when our parents died alone and afraid in hospitals that withheld treatments, when we lost thousands in income (me) or had our livelihoods completely obliterated, or watched our kids lose half their in-person college experience or exchange student opportunities(while we paid extra), or younger kids become isolated and miss out on all their sports and activities. In fact, most of those people would have been quite ok with my bank accounts being frozen, my kids taken away, and would not have objected to putting me in a “quarantine facility”. I know this because many people I thought were friends and colleagues told me so.
If you don’t understand it I can explain it: democrats who hate America and democrats who allow them to do it. There you have it.
Trump was President during the plandemic! He recently praised the lethal injections aka the vax, and took credit.
Yes, democrats are evil, but they aren’t responsible for everything bad. Everything exists with the cooperation of the republicans.
Many of our representatives make noise that sounds good, but has anything been done?
Rand Paul has made headlines about COVID and the vax. He even had Fauci on the stand denying gain-of-function research. Rand Paul has a letter written by Fauci telling scientists to continue with gain-of-function research, in the USA, while it was illegal. R.P. had the proof to put Fauci in jail, but he chose to make a lot of noise and not act.
I think it was Einstein who said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Keep voting. Don’t pay attention to the CFR.
Three things: Fatima, Akita and the Vision of Leo XIII.
Who was it that said that we are only one generation away from barbarism at any given moment in history? What’s happened to New York happened to many once-great American cities, including my home town of San Francisco. A sad cultural slow death. Ms. Wolf, I feel your pain.
It’s a rocky ride, but God gets His world to the right destination. Hold on.
To Chris H: It’s not just the fruits of hatred for our nation’s sovereignty Chris. It’s more basic than the obvious forbidden fruits that liberalism feasts on. It emanates from the spirit of evil anchored in Satins original sin, self destructive and self centered hatred for “Gods Sovereignty”.
“We” bought Satans Big Lie, — “and you shall be like Gods” ! Individually, and thus Collectively, our desire to be master of our own destiny, to choose love of “Self” before our love for God, has condemned us to that very fate.
“Garbage in, Garbage out”. ! AI will be a destructive time bomb for these same reasons.
“I have seen the enemy and it is us !
Jesus tells us to bring our sins before Him and “HE” will wash us white as snow !
—- so, “What of you, who do you say that I Am” ?
In the fully realized feminist world in which we live today, women need femininity like a chicken needs a bike. Since 1960, the feminist project (once identified as ‘the women’s movement’) can be decocted to this:
1) men are pigs
2) men have everything of value
3) women must become men in order to gain everything of value
Mission accomplished, congratulations.
All part of the Grand Plan. New York, Chicago, LA, Seattle, SanFranciso. ……
Few articles have ever brought me to tears and this truthful telling did just that as I remembered arriving in NYC in 1983 as a young European, 34, with $27 in my pocket, clothes on my bag and knew nobody, mid January so snow on the ground and freezing cold.
I borrowed a bicycle for a guy at the International Hostel I stayed in on W88st and became a Bike Messenger for the next two years..
Loved the Big Apple heart and soul and then drove out to California.
I will always love New York City and today I cry for NYC just as I do for San Francisco the other City I love heart and soul.
None of this destruction of Western Culture is by accident, just look across the Pond, and though I am not a Christian I can see a Dark Demonic Force in play these days and it may take this Summer to complete its cycle.
Our institutions for taking over by zombies / robots. Politicians solar souls on the Altar of Never Trump.
When a caring professional takes on a client or pupil, it is for set sessions, with proper oversight, and appropriate self-care when not on duty. No serious professional thinks that inviting their clients to move into their home so that they no longer have a moment or a square inch to themselves will solve anything for anyone. And yet, this is what mass immigration as a solution to world poverty actually does. The people who were in a position to model and advise on healthy development are overwhelmed by their client groups to the point where they cannot sustain their own society, never mind helping anyone else. This kills the hen that was laying the golden eggs. How is it that we can still acknowledge personal boundaries as a good and wholesome thing, but not national ones?
Great essay by Naomi! Yes, the red heart “I Love New York” days are dead and gone.
Lived in NY for a decade and loved all it had to offer then from the mundane hustle and bustle to the ne plus ultra of culture on tap.
Haven’t been back to visit since Covid and indeed have no plans to do so. I love New York now in my memories only.
More than a decade ago, New Yorkers dressed down to reduce their target profile, eschewed eye contact to avoid triggering a drug-addled or unstable passer-by, wore street shoes outdoors to preserve their good shoes for work, and chose carefully the blocks on which they walked and the trains they rode. A lot of what’s wrong in Manhattan stems as much from the communications revolution of the 21st Century as from the upsurge of unassimilable alien “newcomers.” The fruits of our civilization are entropy and centrifugal force. Only Godly nuclear families will rescue our land and western civilization.