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Loving and Hating New York
亦愛亦恨話紐約
Thomas Griffith
托馬斯格里非斯
Those ad campaigns celebrating the Big Apple, those T-shirts with a heart design proclaiming "I love New York," are signs, pathetic in their desperation, of how the mighty has fallen. New York City used to leave the bragging to others, for bragging was "bush" Being unique, the biggest and the best, New York didn't have to assert how special it was.
那些贊美"大蘋果"的廣告活動，還有那些印著帶有"我愛紐約"字樣的心形圖案的T恤衫，只不過是它們在絕望中發出悲哀的跡象，只不過是紐約這個非凡的城市日趨衰落的象征。紐約過去從不自我炫耀，而只讓別的城市去這樣做，因為自我炫耀顯得"小家子氣"。紐約既然是獨一無二的、最大的而且是最好的城市，也就沒有必要宣稱自己是如何與眾不同了。
It isn't the top anymore, at least if the top is measured by who begets the styles and sets the trends. Nowadays New York is out of phase with American taste as often as it is out of step with American politics. Once it was the nation's undisputed fashion authority, but it too long resisted the incoming casual style and lost its monopoly. No longer so looked up to or copied, New York even prides itself on being a holdout from prevailing American trends, a place to escape Common Denominator Land.
然而，今日的紐約再不是頭號城市了。至少，在開創時尚、領導潮流方面，紐約是再也配不_卜這個稱號了。今日的紐約非但常常跟不上美國政治前進的步伐，而且往往也合不上美國人生活情趣變化的節拍。過去有一個時期，它曾是全國流行服裝款式方面無可爭議的權威，但由于長期抵制越來越流行的休閑服裝款式而喪失了，其壟斷地位。紐約已不再是眾望所歸、紛起仿效的對象了，如今它甚至以成為風行美國的時裝潮流的抵制者，以成為擺脫全國清一色的單調局面的一隅逃遁之地而自鳴得意。
Its deficiencies as a pacesetter are more and more evident. A dozen other cities have buildings more inspired architecturally than any built in New York City in the past twenty years.
紐約無力保持排頭兵的地位這一點已是越來越明顯了。有十多座其他城市都已經有了一些在建筑藝術上很富有創造性的建筑物，而紐約最近二十年來所造的任何一幢建筑物都不能與之相比。
