It’s been close enough to half a year living in New York City that I’m willing to bend the timeline a little bit. This is going to be another short post in what has become an ongoing series about how NYC is different from Seattle. This week, as it has been getting more relevant as the weather continues to get nicer, a few observations on nightlife.
The most obvious difference between NYC and Seattle is that bars stay open until 4am rather than 2am. I don’t know if it makes that much of a difference to me though since I don’t like staying up that late anyway. I’m at an age and place in my life now where I doubt I will ever close out a bar in NYC like I did many times in Seattle.
However, it does seem like this shift in closing time does have an overall impact on when people go out and how late they stay out. Maybe I’m not a good judge of this, but there are several areas where I’ve noticed this shift. In Seattle, when I would do a happy hour after work with friends or coworkers, it always seemed to die off by 7pm, no matter who it was or where we were. In New York, the happy hour often doesn’t even start until then, so the times when I have gone out with friends and coworkers after work, it will go until 9 or 10pm. I’m also used to weeknights ending around 10pm and having it feel like a short night. Now I’m getting used to hanging out until midnight on a regular basis, and it feels great.
The environment also plays a factor. Both in terms of weather and in terms of the city itself, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts. People are more likely to stay out later because it’s warm and bright out. People are more likely to stay out later because they live close by and it’s an easy train or bike ride home. There’s a cultural feeling here of gathering and having a good time that Seattle seems to lack. People like to talk about the Seattle Freeze, and I never gave it much mind because I never had those issues with meeting people there. But compared to a place like NYC with its density and diversity, I understand how some people get that impression.
I personally found the shift to be subtle, and I didn’t really think about it that much until more recently, which is why I haven’t spoken of it until now. I had to go to multiple places to realize that happy hours here last until later. It took months to realize that more people get out of work at 6:00 than 5:00, and it shows in how the trains are busiest from 6-7 and restaurants get crowded from 7-8. When I stop paying attention to what time it is during the evenings, I find myself surprised that I still feel great at midnight when I should be tired.
It’s all rather pleasant to be honest. I find myself wanting to be more active later and be around people. I don’t feel as rushed in the evenings as I used to. Of course I do still often wonder where the evening went when I haven’t done anything, but that’s beside the point.
There is a part of me that wonders if this feeling is largely because my experience thus far has been going from winter to summer. The days get longer and the weather gets nicer, so it’s easy to notice how that makes everyone more positive. We will have to see if this remains true in the second half of the year as everything reverses. I suspect it will stay this way until mid-autumn, but after that is the true test.