Reading through Doree's tech/new media piece...

…and laughed out loud at this paragraph, which is the polar opposite of my New York story:

And so, to spend a couple of months immersed in this new culture of optimism was, mostly, refreshing, if startling. Wasn’t New York the place where misanthropes and cynics flocked? Wasn’t New York the place for people who thrived on knowing, and never revealing, the secret phone number for Keith McNally’s restaurants—not the one for people who held open networking parties for anyone who wanted to attend? Wasn’t that so very uncool? But that forbidding, closed version of New York has, for this new generation, itself become uncool.

I came to New York as a lawyer, and the only media contacts I had were people from my student newspaper back in Canada. I didn’t know a single person in New York media when I went to my first media event: a Mediabistro party. I went alone.

But even as a laywer I never felt that New York was for cynics and misanthropes. Some people definitely do become that eventually, no matter what the profession, but in my experience the people who come here from somewhere else do it out of hope, ambition, and optimism.

I’m excited that the article is so upbeat though - I’m not through it yet (I am at this part, above) but I am jazzed that it is all about the optimism and dynamism of this crew. I feel like that captures it.

BUT - I don’t believe that Si Newhouse never wanted to change the world. He did. Over and over again through the award-winning work he has enabled through the company he built. I love the new media kids, but come on. Let’s not forget about how people like Sy Hersh and George Packer get funded.

p.s. I have the secret phone number for one Keith McNally restaurant. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to share it?