評論
打印
The giant Manhattan television studios where Toscanini's NBC Symphony once played now sit empty most of the time, while sitcoms cloned and canned in Hollywood, and the Johnny Carson show live, preempt the airways from California. Tin Pan Alley has moved to Nashville and Hollywood. Vegas casinos routinely pay heavy sums to singers and entertainers whom no nightspot in Manhattan can afford to hire. In sports, the bigger superdomes, the more exciting teams, the most enthusiastic fans, are often found elsewhere.
曾是托斯卡尼尼全國廣播公司交響樂團演出場所的巨人般的曼哈頓電視演播廳，現在經常是空無一人，而好萊塢大量生產出的情景喜劇和約翰尼·卡森節目的實況轉播卻占滿了加利福尼亞的廣播電視發送頻道。美國流行歌曲創作發行中心從紐約的廷潘胡同轉移到了納什維爾和好萊塢。拉斯韋加斯的賭場經常出高薪聘請曼哈頓沒有哪一家夜總會請得起的歌手和藝員。而體育運動方面，那些規模較大的體育館、比較激動人心的球隊以及熱情最高的球迷們，往往都出現在紐約以外的地方。
New York was never a good convention city - being regarded as unfriendly, unsafe, overcrowded, and expensive - but it is making something of a comeback as a tourist attraction. Even so, most Americans would probably rate New Orleans, San Francisco, Washington, or Disneyland higher. A dozen other cities, including my hometown of Seattle, are widely considered better cities to live in.
紐約從來都不是召集會議的好場所--因為那兒少友情.不安全，人口擁擠，消費高昂--但現在它似乎正在一定程度上爭回其作為旅游勝地的地位。即便如此，大多數美國人對新奧爾良、舊金山、華盛頓或迪斯尼樂園等地的評價可能還是高于紐約。人們普遍認為，還有十幾座其他城市，包括我的家鄉西雅圖，都比紐約更適于居住。
Why, then, do many Europeans call New York their favorite city? They take more readily than do most Americans to its cosmopolitan complexities, its surviving, aloof, European standards, its alien mixtures.
那么，為什么有許多歐洲人稱紐約是他們最喜愛的城市呢?他們比大多數美國人更欣賞紐約這個國際大都市的五彩繽紛的生活，它那殘存的、獨此一家的歐洲社會準則以及它那眾多外來民族混雜而居的社會。
