This appeared on Craigslist:

What am I doing wrong?
Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful
(spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy.
I’m not from New York. I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at
least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind
that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think
I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could
you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around
200 – 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get
me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married
to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as
I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I
get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

– Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars,
restaurants, gyms

-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won’t hurt my
feelings

-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I’m 25)?

– Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east
side so plain? I’ve seen really ‘plain jane’ boring types who have
nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I’ve seen drop dead
gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What’s the story
there?

– Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows – lawyer, investment
banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they
hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

– How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for
MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults – I’m putting myself out there in an honest
way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front
about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t
able to match them – in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a
nice home and hearth.

it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial
interests Craig’s List PostingID:
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As I roam about New York today I’ve been encountering the imaginary city, places I’ve heard of or read about or that are in songs. Bleeker Street ruined me for hours as I tried to get that Simon and Garfunkel song out of my head. There was another song-moment, Times Square, or Union Square – I can’t remember now (fortunately, because it was a sucky song.) And “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”, another one I would kind of rather not had as an earworm. The Plaza Hotel, where Simon, or Sport’s friend Chi-Chi was a busboy, and where Eloise skittered down the halls, is under massive construction, turning into condos; it never occurred to me that it was named after an actual place; Grand Army Plaza, right next to it. Minor ephiphany: there is a Plaza next to the Plaza Hotel…. Lincoln Center. Broadway itself. Central Park. Times Square. The Library and “So You Want to be a Wizard”. All so massively written about and heavily mythologized.

I like that level of there being many imaginary realities possible to imagine over the one I see, of the accessibility of histories and stories. There’s a huge pleasure in recognition; in having several mental overlays for a landscape. And yet I also bristle a bit at the ways that everybody in NYC seems to buy into NYC as the center of the universe, as a central myth of City, a sort of Harrisonesque Viriconium or Zelazny-ish Amber where everything that happens is more significant and has more merit intrinsically than if it had happened somewhere else.

I wonder if, across the world, blogging will add an extra layer of reality to enough different places to dispel a bit of that concentration of power, as we all write about our own geographies and territories and give them importance, laying their stories bare to the world.

The great things about making a list about the 25 best something-or-other’s is there is always going to be disagreement and dissention, which are two of my favorite things.

But how does one select just 25 of the hundreds of thousands of characters from fantastic novels, plays, films and television show that have been set in our city? Well, first we laid down some ground rules:

– A fair mix of film, television, novels, comic books and plays, trying not to create too heavy of a skew to one medium or another
– No characters based on real people
– A healthy mix of modern vs. classic characters
– Famous duos canceled each other out (we might do a separate list for them later on down the line)
– For more modern, ensemble based shows (like Friends, Seinfeld, Sex and the City, etc) we decided to focus less on the main characters and more on a repeat secondary character
– Characters whose names we know, not just that they were the guy/girl from that thing
– Representation for some bad guys (not all great characters are heros)
– No two characters can be from the same show/movie/book, etc. With some many to choose from we didn’t want any duplicates.

From there we created a list of about 60 characters and whittled it down from there. The characters selected had a lot to do with which author wanted to write about whom and the order had a lot of do with schedules of the authors and such. The closest we got to a scientific method was mailing around suggestions and taking the ones that came up the most and putting them towards the top of the list. For instance, almost every person named Holden, so it was clear that he should be #1.
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Name: Holden Caulfield
Residence: East 71st Street
Likes: His brothers and sister, Jane Gallagher, those crazy ducks in the Central Park lagoon
Dislikes: Goddmaned phonies
Memorable quote: “Sleep tight, ya morons!”

The term “angst-ridden teen” doesn’t do justice to this native New Yorker, who’d probably slit his wrists before calling himself a New Yorker, a label he’d surely hate. He simply grew up on the Upper East Side, the second oldest – and the “dumbest” – of four siblings: D.B., a writer and “prostitute” in Hollywood, his younger brother Allie, dead three years from leukemia, and his much-loved younger sister Phoebe.

Thrown out of yet another private school, sixteen-year old Holden spends several nights wandering the city, from Times Square, to the Village, to the Museum of Natural History, encountering hypocrisy and “Fuck yous” everywhere. “I think, even,” he says, “if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say ‘Holden Caulfield’ on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say ‘Fuck you.’ I’m positive, in fact.”

In the end it’s Phoebe who brings him around, convincing him to stay and let got of his madman’s idea of hitchhiking out west and working on a ranch. For the first time in a long time he feels happy as he sits in the rain and watches his sister ride around and around in the carousel in Central Park.

Holden hasn’t been seen in quite some time. Some say he did make it out west. Others claim that he never moved from 71st Street. I’d like to believe he’s still here, listening to jazz downtown, feeding the ducks at the lagoon, and watching that goddamned carousel, because despite all his rantings and ravings about phonies, crooks, and bastards, Holden loved this city, and I’d like to think he’d never leave, despite its scars. Because of them.

Wikipedia

Other Fictional New Yorkers in this series

Name: Peter Benjamin Parker
A.K.A: Spider-Man… but, uh, shhh.
Hometown: Forrest Hills, Queens, New York
Occupation: Student / Freelance Photogrpaher / Super Hero
Memorable Quote: “My spidey senses are tingling.” Perv.

Peter Parker has all the luck. I mean, sure, he’s small and bookish, and upon first glance, you may think he represents some kind of New York City college kid archetype. If you work in publicity, you might even cattily remark that he’s obviously a virgin and probably has a small penis. And, although I cannot verify whether or not the latter is true (no, really, I can’t), I can assure you that homeboy’s got it goin’ on, fo’ real.

While attending a field trip with his class from Midtown High School, Peter was bitten by an irradiated spider that… CHANGED HIS LIFE FOREVER. Seriously, though, even if his intrinsic passion for science wasn’t enough to get him into Stuy, the spider-like abilities he acquired from the spider bite were enough to cement his future success.

With Parker’s transformation and subsequent new/alter identity came an overwhelming amount of responsibility. Because of his super powers, he felt compelled to save the troubled citizens of New York City on a daily basis, that it was his destiny. The moments he was unsuccessful (he claims responsibility for the deaths of his Uncle Ben and former girlfriend Gwen Stacy, as examples) rendered him pained, conflicted, and with enough elements to complete the essay on his journey as a hero.

But, we shall not dwell on the negative. Because, really, super powers? Totally awesome. And, the additional confidence has made Peter a skillful panty-dropper, to boot. His girlfriend Mary Jane is a total babe. And, despite being accepted to Empire State University on an academic-based scholarship that didn’t nearly cover the cost of admission (surprise, surprise!), Parker was smart enough to become his own paparazzo, taking pictures of himself as Spidey fighting crime so that he could sell the shots to the Daily Bugle as a freelance photographer.

More than anything, though, Peter Parker’s web-slinging capabilities, brought on by the spider bite, allow him to never have to take the G when the fucking L-train isn’t running. Bitch.

Name: Michael Corleone
Birthplace: Little Italy, New York
Occupation: Sells olive oil (No, really. Really.)
Interests: Extortion, racketeering, revenge, the opera
Memorable quote: “Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.”

The youngest and most beloved son of Italian immigrants Vito and Carmella Corleone, Michael was a Dartmouth graduate and World War II veteran. He vowed to stay out of the family business, but was yanked in when rivals tried to off his father. The next thing Michael knew he was groping for a stashed away firearm in the men’s room of an Italian restaurant in the Bronx, then blowing out the brains of the guys behind the assassination attempt.

Thus began Michael’s life of, um, foodstuff. Betrayals and revenge were around every corner, from his bodyguard in Sicily, to his sister Connie’s abusive, philandering husband Carlo, to Tessio, his father’s right hand guy. But the biggest betrayer was his own brother, Fredo, who helped Hyman Roth and Johnny Ola attempt to do away with the young Don. “I know it was you Fredo,” Michael told him on a crowded dance floor in Havana. “You broke my heart. You broke my heart!” Cue kiss of death.

After his daughter bit the assassin’s bullet meant for him, Michael moved to Sicily alone, where he died at age 77 of a stroke. He had sacrificed a normal life for his family, but in the end he sacrificed family too.

Wikipedia | IMDB (Godfather, Godfather Part 2, Godfather Part 3)

Other Fictional New Yorkers in this series

Name: Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man
A.K.A: Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, The Traveler
Occupation: Shapeshifting God / Prehistoric Bitch
Address: 55 Central Park West
Memorable Quotes: “Are you a God? (Hesitant “No” answer) Then…DIE!!!”

Along with its trusty dog-like minions, Zuul (“The Gatekeeper”) and Vinz Clortho (“The Keymaster”), Gozer came to New York through a massive apartment build on the Upper West Side. The building was built by cult-leader Ivo Shandor after World War I and was designed specifically to gather enough psychokinetic energy to act as a portal for Gozer and it’s minions to enter the world and destroy it. Gozer has taken a few forms in the past: during the rectification of the Vuldronaii the Traveler came as a large, moving Torb. Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants they chose a new form for him–that of a giant Sloar. In 1984 Gozer’s form was chosen by Dr. Raymond Stantz and was that of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Gozer’s goal was to lead New York City into a disaster of biblical proportions, one that would invoke the Old Testament and “real wrath-of-god type stuff” including (but not limited to) fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling over, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria.

Gozer was ultimately bested by the act of “Crossing the Streams” which was supposed to be bad, but we’re all still fuzzy on that whole God/Bad thing. We’re told it’s something along the lines of all life as we know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in our bodies exploding at the speed of light, but luckily that didn’t happen.

And best of all, after being imprisoned in a ghost containment unit, Mr. Stay-Puft was experimented on and rendered harmless. Later he developed a friendly persona, ultimately joined forces with Gozer’s destructors to help rid New York City of other supernatural creatures. And there’s nothing we love in NYC better than a reformed bad boy.

imdb | wikipedia

Other Fictional New Yorkers in this series

Name: Dorothy Michaels (aka Michael Dorsey)
Occupation: Actress. . .I mean, actor. I mean, actress.
Residence: Manhattan
Memorable quote: “No, no, no – SANDY thinks I’m gay, JULIE thinks I’m a lesbian.”

Michael Dorsey is a talented New York actor most well-known for his work as a tomato. “Nobody does vegetables like me,” he has said. But he’s also notororiously difficult to work with and can’t get a job to save his life. So what else would any self-respecting thespian do but don a dress and go out for the soap opera role his friend Sandy wanted? The surprising thing is that everyone buys it although Dorothy Michaels looks a lot like, well, Dustin Hoffman in drag.

But Dorothy/Michel isn’t satisfied with a steady job and sharing a dressing room with model-like, exercising-in-her-bra loving castmate April (“What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t give my girls tits… tips?”). He has to go and fall in love with the show’s star and doormat, Julie, also the current paramour of the sleazy director, while trying to hide all of this from Sandy, who has proclaimed his feminine alter ego cow-like.

What’s a girl – um, guy – to do? Continue with this charade forever, or tell Julie how he feels and risk losing everything? We all know the answer to that one.

Most recently Michael can be seen appearing in pretentious off-off-off-Broadway plays, but rumor has it that he’ll be doing Surreal Life stint as Dorothy Michaels.

IMDB | The Surreal Life site

Other Fictional New Yorkers in this series

Name: James “Jimmy” Gatz aka Jay “the Great” Gatsby
Address: West Egg, Long Island
Occupation: Bootlegger
Hobbies: Man About Town
Memorable Quote: Nick: “You can’t repeat the past.” Gatsby: “Why of course you can!”

The tale of Jay Gatsby is a typical New York story about innocent and idealistic young people from America’s heartland who come to the big City and are corrupted by money and power. Born Jimmy Gatz to a poor farming family in North Dakota, like many poor young men, Jimmy goes to the army and becomes an officer. He meets the beautiful Daisy with whom he has a passionate love affair. Daisy comes from a wealthy mid-Western family. She rejects Gatz for the rich and corrupt Chicagoan, Tom Buchanan. Tom and Daisy end up in East Egg, Long Island, where all the fashionable “old” money New Yorkers live or have summer homes.

Gatz is consumed by his love for Daisy. Moreover, having been raised on American “family values,” the young Jimmy feels that having had a sexual relationship with Daisy means they must be married. Realizing that the only way to win Daisy back is to get rich quick, Jimmy comes to New York and follows a path many poor young people still do for easy money: he gets involved in a life of “crime” as defined by the “Man.” Since he lived in the Twenties, this meant he became a bootlegger, working with a Jewish gangster with lots of “gonnections.”

With his new found wealth, Gatsby moves out of the City and buys a mansion in the less fashionable West Egg, just across the bay from where his love lives. He assumes a new mysterious identity as Jay Gatsby, and tries to insinuate himself into the snobby society circles in which Daisy travels. Eventually he and Daisy unite, but she just uses him to make her philandering husband jealous. Driving Gatsby’s car she “accidently” runs over her husband’s mistress Myrtle, a poor married woman from the wrong side of the tracks. Daisy runs back to her husband, knowing he will protect her from the police. Tom delivers the coup de grace to the broken-hearted Gatsby by getting Myrtle’s husband to kill Gatsby. As in most New York tales, the rich get away with murder and the poor get shafted.

Other Fictional New Yorkers in this series

Name: Archie Bunker
Residence: 704 Hauser Street – Astoria, Queens
Occupation: Dock Supervisor / Curmudgeon / Bigot
Hobbies: Racism, saying “Youse”, antagonized left-wingers
Memorable Quote: “You are a meathead!! A meathead, dead-from-neck-up Meathead!”

The quintessential, all-American bigot, Archie Bunker is one of those guys who fails to recognize that the world around him is changing and that he has to change with it. Archie believes that the good old days were better than the days we are living in now, and he pines for the music of Glenn Miller, the leadership of Herbert Hoover and his glorious old LaSalle.

Archie is confounded and annoyed by anyone and everything that doesn’t share his narrow view of the world. He is a brash, uneducated, blue-collar worker, whose small thinking doesn’t make him the most popular man in Queens. Many think that much Archie’s resentment towards the world around him (and specifically to his left-wing son-in-law Meathead) stems from the fact that Archie was forced to drop out of school to support his family during the Depression. Perhaps he feels he didn’t have the same opportunities for education and success that the younger generation does.

In spite of his abrasive nature, Archie is really a good guy deep down. Most notably, when he was asked to join a secret “Christian” club, which is later revealed to be the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, Archie balks at the group’s violent methods and attempts to thwart a cross burning.

One of Archie’s most memorable moments occurred when he took up a job moonlighting as a taxi driver and picked up Sammy Davis Jr. as fare. Davis accidentally leaves his briefcase in his cab and comes to Archie’s house to retrieve it. A series of uncomfortable conversations and awkward moments culminates in Archie and Sammy posing for a photo together, during which Davis plants a huge kiss on Archie’s cheek.

Later in life, Archie learns to finally accept the people around him with different background–he takes in his wife Edith’s nine-year old niece who turns out to be Jewish, and later when he becomes the proprietor of his favorite bar Kelcy’s (which he renames to Archie Bunker’s Place), he becomes friendly with his diverse staff, including a Jewish business partner, a Latino waiter and an Irish-Catholic cook. Way to move with the times Archie!

Wikipedia | TVland

Other Fictional New Yorkers in this series