thewhills said:
Moonbear, I think you can thank nice stainless steel and glass skyscrapers and time square for that :)
Times Square is nowhere near lower Manhattan.
There are newer buildings post-9/11 in lower Manhattan, capitalizing on the tax breaks to help rebuild the area, but there are also plenty of nice, old buildings. To me, the style of architecture is only a small part of what gives a place the feel of being hi-tech. I think the rest of it is the people and other aspects of the infrastructure. For all the complaining the people do, the NYC Subway system is amazing! It's funny...until about a year ago, I used to avoid it at all costs. I'd walk or take taxis in the city. Part of that is the stigma I grew up with of the subway being dirty and full of crime (people being shoved onto the tracks in the path of an oncoming train were a regular part of the news when I was a teen in the 80s; so was Bernard Getz and the Guardian Angels vigilante "justice" trying to protect the subways from gangs). Anyway, the city has really done a great job of cleaning that up, and I just LOVE taking subways now. It takes maybe two days to get the hang of it, and then they are really easy to navigate, and such a super-cheap way to get all around the city. I know there must be a good deal of technology involved in keeping them even remotely on-schedule with so many lines running all day long.
Discovering free internet in the parks was another nice touch. Everybody is online there. Want to order take-out? You don't even need a phone...just send in your order online!
For an overall "feel" of high-tech though, no city I've been in can rival one of the Rutgers' campuses. The Busch Campus, which has the engineering school, all of the science departments (physics, chemistry, life sciences), and the med school, is just the most amazingly high-tech feeling place I've ever been. The buildings are very shiny and sleek...simple but elegant designs. The campus design is very modern, just with the way the sidewalks and green spaces are arranged...very clean-cut, but the walking paths actually make perfect sense as the straightest lines between places (unlike many other campuses where the sidewalks are not the straightest line between places, so the lawns look ugly where students have trampled them making their own paths). I used to love to go study on that campus, because I just felt energized being there. The campus I lived on was much more of a serene, relaxing environment...great to "come home" to and sleep at night, but the Busch Campus was the one for studying.
