What Manhattan Needs (and What to Get Rid of to Make Room)

In Manhattan, one seemingly has access to everything a human might desire: cut flowers, bookstore smell, Thai food, the ability to weep in public (without anyone asking if you’re O.K.). Then there are the countless local offerings you didn’t even know you wanted: cereal-milk-flavored ice cream, more than two hundred Starbucks locations, the apocalyptic chaos of SantaCon, “alternate-side parking.”

Despite all that, we are still missing a few things that could significantly improve life here. But Manhattan is very crowded, so we’ll need to get rid of some existing stuff to make room for the new.

Get rid of: Fast-casual salad places. There are too many salad places. I can no longer consume my wellness slop from the communal trough.
In favor of: A place to buy an enormous Italian sandwich with all the fixings that does not cost eighteen dollars.

Get rid of: The dining sheds. Please, I beg you.
In favor of: Little stations every few blocks where you can sanitize your shoes, hands, phone, and brain.

Get rid of: Any coffee shop that thinks it’s acceptable to charge more than three dollars and fifty cents for a drip coffee.
In favor of: Bone-broth-to-go windows. (Exclusively to-go. A bone-broth café would have a pretty insufferable vibe.)

Get rid of: Tax loopholes for finance bros.
In favor of: Monthly hundred-dollar Sephora stimulus checks for anyone who’s ever invested in a skin serum.

Get rid of: All billboards and public advertising.
In favor of: Signs outside subway entrances that tell you when the next train is coming and whether the air-conditioning is working on said train.

Get rid of: The East Village bar Bermuda Triangle.
In favor of: Bars for people over twenty-five.

Get rid of: The Museum of Ice Cream, the Museum of Sex, the Museum of Illusions, and any other Instagram trap masquerading as a cultural institution.
In favor of: “TV theatres,” which screen episodes of “The Sopranos,” “Mad Men,” and “True Detective” (Season 1, but not the finale). And maybe they give you a little glass of wine for five dollars?

Get rid of: All vapes. All CBD smoke shops. Can you smoke CBD? Does it do anything?
In favor of: Cigarettes that are good for you. It really cannot be that hard.

Get rid of: “Life-style-content creator” TikTok influencers with unreasonable apartments.
In favor of: City-mandated screen-time limits for Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. The only way to override the limit is to pick up ten pieces of trash. The city would be spotlessly clean in a week.

And finally, because I can already hear people saying that the tax loopholes will never be closed and that they need a few more things from Sephora, let’s institute hundred-dollar fines for people who order at cafés with AirPods in their ears. ♦