POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK: Not Sex and the City

NEW YORK—I hate what’s happened to New York. Well, no. I love what’s happened—what’s happening—in New York: The Yankees are winning, Guiliani is losing, crime is down and tourism is up. What I hate is how New York has been co-opted. The biggest, baddest city has met his match, his master, in the form of Hollywood. The masters of spin have put New York on a diet, squeezed him into a size-four dress, airbrushed the dark spots and tied him up with a pink ribbon as a gift to restless soccer moms across Middle America. You know what I’m talking about. The media machine responsible for making New York a symbol of glitz, lust and self-entitlement. This travesty is called “Sex and the City,” and it’s the worst thing to happen to New York since the Dodgers left.

“Sex and the City,” entering its fourth season on HBO, shows the world the shiny red skin of the Big Apple. Its cast of characters range from a porn-obsessed Harvard graduate and aging “Ladies who Lunch” to balding MBAs and fashionable lesbian painters. In each episode, sex and love and pseudo-truisms combine to create an aura of casual cool that titillates the majority of Americans who don’t really know what a publicist is. The story line consists of the struggles of four upper-middle class, highly fashionable, single, thirty-something women as they balance the perfect mate versus the perfect job, apartment and sex life. A typical episode includes pubic hair grooming and falling in love with your gym instructor.

The New York that I first experienced as a young, single female in the City was (surprise!) not sexy. Walking down Broadway for the first time in a year, the pollution and honking made it difficult to breathe and made me nervous to cross the street. Once, I literally had to lean against a nearby office building and catch my breath.

On my first day at work, I got lost among the soaring skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan and arrived to check in with the receptionist with only five minutes to spare. After filling out the requisite paperwork, I rode to the 24th floor only 10 minutes late. I chatted with the security guard via intercom and then stepped into the gray and green hallway that would be my office for the next eight weeks. The place was completely empty. My coworker Miriam cheerily informed me at 9:45 that no one comes in on Mondays. The other interns all had the day off. I didn’t even know if Michelle, our boss, was coming in that day. I was confused, tired, sweaty and annoyed—not sexy. Plus, later in the week, I discovered that the cocky, Banana-Republic intern in the office down the hall was being paid twice as much as I was. Was I being penalized for my jean jacket?

In the space of a week, however, I got used to it. In one respect, HBO has gotten the city right: New York in the summer is a lot like tantric sex—it’s long, it’s hot and if you want to do it right, you need to buy a book. So, during my first week, I did what came naturally—I studied. I skimmed The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene to figure out how to win the rat race. I perused the Zagat guide to discover where, in the nation’s most competitive restaurant market, I could (and should) eat. The New York Times introduced me to the city’s free offerings: the free movies in Bryant Park, the Summerstage concerts in Central Park, the book readings, the poetry slams, the roller skating rink. While exploring these options, I learned more. The admission fee at the Metropolitan Museum is only a suggestion. The sculpture garden on its roof is one of the best (and most accessible) views in Manhattan. And when you want tickets to Tom Stoppard’s “The Seagull,” you actually do have to line up three hours beforehand.

Once the newness wears off, New York accepts you. The human traffic on the sidewalks leaves room for you to join the fast-paced rush to work. The cocky intern turns out to be a nice guy. And you get a permanent three-day weekend.

Hey, I understand that aspects of this city are status-conscious and Manolo Blahnik-obsessed. And I don’t begrudge the HBO tycoons their right to make money off of it. Nor do I begrudge Sarah Jessica Parker and Co. the right to discuss the intersection of relationships and partial lobotomies (in the latest episode, she decides they could go together like “chocolate and peanut butter”). I begrudge the way “Sex and the City” threatens to embody New York City. Yes, it’s glitzy. Yes, its social scene is, to a certain extent, driven by money. For example, this past June the New York Times reported that a British journalist armed with a fake title and an expense account was able to conquer New York society within a week. Yet the point of this story is not the superficiality of New York’s elite (although that’s a valid point to make). The point is that New York society is infinitely mobile. Everyone, even a fake aristocrat—or a bookish intern—is welcome.

Anyone can become a New Yorker—if you put your mind to it. I guess that’s what the creators of “Sex and the City” have realized.

Christina S. N. Lewis ’02, a history and literature concentrator in Leverett House, is Creative Director of Fifteen Minutes, The Harvard Crimson’s weekend magazine. This summer, she puts in long hours as an intern at TIME magazine.