I am born and raised in NYC since 1976 and I gotta tell you it feels like the old NY again
First off you ain't a real New Yorker if you don't know what BECSPK means.
But right now is so reminiscent of New York in the 90s
You got weed being pushed everywhere. Got the Knicks playing like its 1994. Rangers are playing like 1994. The city is what it use to be. Crime is somewhat low but always gotta keep your head on a swivel
God bless the city that makes you strong like no other. The city that makes you hustle like no other
Say go ny go ny go!
Feels Like NY Again
Fan MailAnd the 86 Mets!
Get Pete and the boys some cocaine!!!
And uppers! And downers!
Let's wreck this plane, LFGM
cocaine bear
all new meaning to Polar Pete
Still upset that they broke up that team, gone from NYC many years,what an amazing team
Can we please just have one Mets?
Little roller up along first...
BEHIND THE BAG…!
cries in Boston transplant
Ooooh, and Crack. Waaaaaay more Crack.
What is fentanyl if not the crack version of heroin?
smh, yet another victim of globalization... used to be able to buy homemade crack from your neighbor, but now it's all smack crack from a Chinese factory, no room for small American businesses
We'll also need to bring back VCRs, so my Aunt Ginger has something to steal from our apartment for crack money--also, we'll need to bring back Aunt Ginger.
Enough crack oughta do it
Being kind of annoyed at $1200 for a two bedroom in the deep west village.
I'm all for this. Let's go!
Easy there, Jimmy McMillan
I don't want to make my silly joke overly political, but... ol Jimmy was 100% correct about pied a terre taxes, and he's to this day the only person to actually propose them.
I saw Jimmy walking out of B&H photo maybe in 2009? He had a cut off work out shirt on and a tattoo that read, “the rent is to damn high” on his arm
Let's bring back those 1994 rents to really make it clear
I preferred the 1983 rents.
But things really started to take off in 1995. That's for sure.
gonna need some gunshots going off every hour in willysburg/crown heights/bed stuy. Keep the hood, hood.
Lol
And the money! Let’s bring back to 94!
“$1,000 in 1994 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $2,107.50 today, an increase of $1,107.50 over 30 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 2.52% per year between 1994 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 110.75%.”
Considering that the value of the dollar has basically doubled while median rent has increased almost sevenfold, I'm fine making this tradeoff.
I disagree. There were so many more artists, small theaters, dive bars, cheap restaurants in the 90s. All of these things were largely priced out years ago, and what is left gets less and less each year. While NYC is still has more of these things than others cities in the US, it is a shell of what it used to be.
I agree and want to add something else that’s changed for the worse. I feel like when I was growing up and a young adult there where way more things, like restaurants, that stayed open super late or 24 hours. A lot of those places had been around for a long time, but now they’re either gone or have reduced their hours. I also miss the cheap late night meals. I used to be able to get a proper sit down dinner, from a divey restaurant for $4,50 in the middle of the night in the village.
The "city that never sleeps" seems pretty dormant at late hours these days. While the trend of these places closing has been happening for a while, most existing diners/late night spots did not return to 24 hours after Covid.
The unique cultural diversity is gone it’s not supportable with Disney rents to pay . There are no more Rasta nicklebag spots no more late night knishes , no more Uzbek cobblers or Hasidic degenerates or afghan heroin spots or afterhour biker violence or sackett st boys no more nothing except the endless hours of wondering why you moved here and cell phone stores for some reason
While I loved those times and miss all those places, your comment reminded me that everything smelled like cigarettes.
So much of the city is now geared toward tourists and the extremely wealthy. Mayor Bloomberg actually achieved his stated goal of turning the city into a "luxury product."
Yep, F Bloomberg.
These still exist, just not in Manhattan anymore
There are plenty of artists they just all happen to have rich parents.
i really thought this was r/circlejerknyc lol clown post
The BECSPK line is what gave me circle jerk vibes lol.
I've lived in NYC most of my life, born and raised, and never in my life saw someone write it out like that lol. What a tool
Wtf is the spk for, I assume BEC is bacon egg and cheese?
Salt pepper ketchup
Thanks!
What? You’re not a real New Yorker? Get off this page. /s
You can tell where someone grew up in the boroughs just based of that acronym. I grew up in the hood and it clicked immediately.
I believe you, but my mind immediately went to reddit hipster from midwest who lived here for 6 months and gatekeeps "New Yorkness"
Mine went to Jennifer Lopez trying to flex her Bronx bona fides. "My go to order at the bodega was a ham and cheese on a roll with an orange drink—if you know, you know—and a small bag of chips,”
I don't know wtf she was talking about.
So did I, never seen or heard that acronym a day in my life.
usually just B - E - C although some in the outerboroughs will say "Beck"
never in my life saw someone write it out like that lol
except on reddit
Yeah. I know what it means, but I’m also pretty sure all the kosher deli owners and customers who’ve never ordered one of these in their lives are still really from New York.
Thank you for saying this. I don’t know when we all decided we’d start pretending that all real ny’ers eat bodega food. This is by no means true.
That annoys me so much! My family is Jewish (not so observant anymore), but family members would not eat that due to it breaking kosher rules. My grandma was born in Washington Heights and worked as a NYC public school teacher. But she never had one, so she isn't a REAL New Yorker?
I didn't realize it wasn't until I got to the comments.
I moved here about 2 years ago and that was almost immediately the first thing I learned.
I can imagine if a transplant of under 5 years knows what it means, it’s either not “real” New York or it’s something that’s so ubiquitous it was either on sex and the city or at least one Spiderman film
first thing i thought was “this is going on nyccirclejerk”
Of course it exists. And after a few minutes of clicking around it’s the best circle jerk sub there is
It is, OP just doesn't know it. Say hi to everyone in Nebraska next time you visit home, OP!
The gatekeeping in this city is so fucking cringe.
usually by people who have no idear what they're talking about
Can we bring TWILO back too? Save the Robots? The Limelight? Sound Factory?
Fucking CBGBs. Also Lansky's, which was the last great diner in this city (Katz's hasn't counted since their sandwiches started to cost thirty damn dollars)
RIP to Cup and Saucer as well, they had amazing bacon to go with eggs home fries and rye bread
Every scene we dominated got lost in the shuffle sadly. I was too young for these scenes during their prime, but I remember these locations vividly before they shut down or changed.
The best thing to do is cherish the now. A few years down the road we’ll be saying similiar about the venues of today.
Heck, I feel the same way on losing output a few years ago
I was at a birthday party yesterday and one of the toddlers was wearing coveralls - strangely reminded me of going to twilo on Halloween dressed as a mechanic (coveralls with nothing underneath). Ah good times.
This is a pretty dope core memory .
Oh wow twilo
We used to be the clubbing capital of the world! Now we're the city every DJ skips on their tour. Such a shame.
Eh nah a lot still come through. Even play multiple nights. For mainstream bigger artists, cities would die for having a venue like Brooklyn Mirage and it’s smaller rooms in once facility. Public Records brings a lot of small and local DJs through. Four Tet threw a two-day party under the K bridge in Greenpoint. The Lot Radio brings artists through for a 1 hour set in the divide between Williamsburg and Greenpoint. There’s so much out there if you look for it, you could do something 4 nights a week of quality sets if you were really up for it financially and energy wise. The issue is that if any DJ has a namesake for themselves nationally, you’re spending $60-$100 for a GA ticket for a decent sized venue. That used to be $20-$50 back in 2015-2019.
Twilo! Damn, spent so much time there. With Sleep No More finally closing, maybe Twilo will come back! Miss the Tunnel too.
Sleep no more has been closing since 2012...I'll believe it when I see it
I went to all of those in their day. I wasn’t a regular but Limelight was literally the most incredible experience you could imagine inside that fucking old church, and Twilo was just so fucking huge and expansive, it seemed like multiple big box stores.
Those clubs were fucking wild. There was a rave and club kid aesthetic and the girls were all waifs, it was younger, way more energy and more massive crowds than you would have today at a big name Manhattan nightclub where most of the guys will be flexing cash at private tables; tons of guys in suits. Had a way more underground vibe than the clubs today. FWIW I didn’t enjoy nightclubs in the 90s, and I don’t like them today lol.
But back then my college roommate was like a billionaire and my friend group of guys was like all super handsome so we got invited to lots of parties and we always had someone who knew a doorman or something.
Forgot Tunnel
Palladium anybody??
Used to be a wild club, now its an NYU dorm.
Yep and I’ve somehow been in both
I feel the opposite. Skyrocketing prices on what used to be cheap commodities like the BEC. A lot of locations and events that used to make all 5 boroughs feel unique no longer exist and it’s gotten overly corporate with too many neighborhoods looking like cookie cutter versions of one another.
it’s gotten overly corporate with too many neighborhoods looking like cookie cutter versions of one another.
Just like the rest of America
Yes, but NY held on longer than most.
Which neighborhoods look like cookie cutter versions of one another
I feel ya here, but it still feels like the (very) late night bustle is missing. Like it exists, but only in small spots rather than that sense that you could be out at 3am in a bunch of different neighborhoods and there'd be stuff happening. Places still hopping. We haven't rebounded to that quite yet.
Yeah but back then, there were way more working people still left that could carve out a living here. Every year another X% of them are being elbowed out by the elite.
Facts
Native New Yorker ('68) and had no idea what BECSPK met. But then I, like many in the Big Apple, don't eat bacon.
The real NYC subplot is how increasingly pork bacon is being phased out at a lot of bodegas as the demographics change.
Beef pepperoni pizza. I think it was in the small mall at rochdale. Arab pizza place. I doubt it's still there though.
Native New Yorker ('70) and also had no idea what that dumb acronym means either, even though I love bacon egg and cheese on a roll or bagel or just about anything else. No idea what SPK is supposed to mean. An ethnic slur?
Same here. Native, born in Manhattan in '71. That acronym is BS. No one uses that.
Also, in my view it's bad here in ways it never was. A city of billionaires. No great stores anymore. Everyone in their own world on their phone on the train, including the few cops. Rents through the stratosphere. No music clubs, no culture. Trust funders everywhere. I could go on...
It's only something people terminally online would use. Nobody picks up phrases from actual conversations anymore.
It's true. So many things I read that people "say" (i.e. on the phone) are just dumb memes.
Everything goes in cycles. I just read an article about how all-night eateries are starting to pop up again. As long as the demand is there, this city will start staying up all night again. And as for the train, I have positive interactions all the time. Plus, thanks to all the crazy people, more and more people are keeping their eyes OFF their phones 
salt pepper ketchup, but I don't use this term either
Oh, thank you. Putting ketchup on it is gilding the lily in my opinion but whatever
For me that's the salt, getting plenty of salt and flavor already from the bacon & cheese
Absolutely agree, I don't need any of that stuff, I guess a little pepper wouldn't hurt lol
I like putting pickled jalapeños on it. Adds a little flavor, acidity, and spice, without ruining it like ketchup does. Started doing it years ago when the Mexican lady outside my building was selling them that way.
Whoa, hang on a second. Run that by me again? Oh, man, now my stomach is growling. Thanks lol
No idea what SPK is supposed to mean. An ethnic slur?
yes
Brooklynite 25 years. It’s “bacon egg cheese on a roll”. thats it . at my bodega anyway
Second/third generation native NYer here and I only knew because of this Sub’s obsession with them. I eat bacon (rarely and with a lot of accompanying guilt) but I just can’t imagine starting my day with a sandwich like that and still getting any work done.
Eggs cheese and 2 strips of bacon on a roll is that daunting to you?
I was born here and lived her longer than you and honestly I'm tired of the "you ain't a real New Yorker if" you don't know some dumb thing.
My grandparents were born in NYC and lived in NYC and raised their kids in NYC. And they don't do this.
BECSPK is not a thing. No one creates an acronym for this. Some transplant millennial used a hashtag for this after overhearing the order at the bodega and put on their knit cap and Ohio State hoodie and posted this.
The weed situation is very 2024, not 1994. This is by far the weediest it’s ever been.
Speaking of the mid- 90's, we're having great rap battles again. Globalism made them international vs coastal.
We need Ghostbusters 3 now
Change the title to UBER DRIVER
Either copium or bait
Now Mets need to play like it’s 1996. You gotta BELIEVE
Yeah bring back Bernard Gilkey and Rico Brogna /s
1996 they ended the season 25 games back in the division. Pretty sure you mean 86.
I'll die on the hill that Ketchup has no business being on a BEC
You mean the Adams administration is fucking up and not handling basic city maintenance and QoL tasks that functioned decently under Bloomberg and De Blasio? Yes, I agree.
Why would you ruin a baconneggandcheese with ketchup?
You're banished to Jersey. Take the Nets fans with you.
Lol. I'm excited about the Knicks too. This city has some of the best basketball fans in the world. (I'm not sure if many of them can make it to the Garden anymore.) But I'm happy.
🗽 🙌🏻 🏀
Small buisness is dead in nyc which is the total opposite of the 90s.
Except the BEC is $8 now
Also, not to ruin your nostalgic moment, but have you not noticed that this city has become a vertical suburb where nobody can afford to live, and transplants constantly come to reddit to ask about “quiet neighborhoods” to raise their brats, and who sells the best organic, free range, farm to table… whatever?
fuckoutat here with this BECSPK noise. Ketchup is a condiment for babies.
Oh yea sure man it only costs $600 for a nosebleed ticket to go to the Garden & you can’t find a studio apartment for under 3k, but it’s fuggin back babay!
First off you ain't a real New Yorker if you don't know what BECSPK means.
This is bait.
But on the off-chance it's not: how can something that anyone can google make someone a "real" anything?
I moved to NY in ‘94, thanks for reminding me that was one of the best and most memorable years! Go Knicks and Yanks!
How does needing to worry about being randomly pushed in front of a train make you strong?
As a born and raised New York Jew I still have to fight for an Everything bagel with cream cheese and lox being the superior breakfast,I will die on that hill
If only they didn’t cost almost 20 fuckin dollars now smh
Yeah it’s become a rare treat
Lived in Nebraska my whole life, husband is from Coney Island. It IS the superior choice, with capers. 🤤 We did have a decent Jewish deli for awhile, I would even drive the hour away to stock up on things and bring back a cooler full. Sadly, it didn't survive the pandemic and our subsequent move closer.
Swartz's on Pacific street in Omaha? i loved that place.
Yes! We miss them so much now that we live here in Omaha. Bagel bin just isn't the same.
Lifelong nyc dweller and never heard that for a bacon egg and cheese either . True New Yorker would know that that’s an opportunity to SAY it like a New Yorker , with the accent.
Born and raised in Brooklyn. Only people I know that ruin a BEC with salt pepper ketchup are from Connecticut.
Also never heard of a chopped cheese until recently.
I'm a native New Yorker who's older than you. BECSPK is not a term I've heard before.
Bacon egg cheese salt pepper ketchup, I’m guessing.
I Googled it. We have to be careful by what we're judging "a real New Yorker." :-)
Giants are playing like it was the 70s too.
“Crime is somewhat low” 😂 didn’t know you also perform comedy
Can we bring back restaurants I can buy shit in
This just reminded me of a summer back in the late 90's when a college friend introduced me to nutcracker drinks.Good times lol.
Feels different than when I was a kid, when it truly was the city that never sleeps. My mother-in-law was in town this weekend and wanted to go shopping at 6 PM on Sunday. Most stores we passed in Midtown East was either already closed or closing for the night. Felt weird.
I blame the pandemic. These places probably rolled out limited hours when things started opening back up and stuck with it.
Hell naw. NYC is the worst it’s ever been. Everything is too expensive, it’s so goddamn crowded and congested, rent is ridiculous, the homeless problem is terrible, the mta is horrible, the crime rate has skyrocketed. Idk what NY you’re in, but this is not the same one I grew up in.
Yes. Yes and yes. Been here my whole life and it’s never been worse in every way.
this is bait
What if you know what BECSPK is but you don’t want the S and you absolutely hate the K?
Pass on the SPK for me. BEConaroll-littlebitofhotsauce is more like it.
I just left the city, unfortunately and also fortunately for my wallet. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I never missed a rent payment in 6 years but debt was piling on and I need a break. Ditmas Park/Flatbush treated me very well. I liked it there. But things don’t seem to be going in the right direction for the city I.e. rent, mayor, undocumented human beings, people driving who probably don’t even have licenses, cost of food, and yeah, that damn mayor!!
BECSPK
The K is an abomination. SECEBSP (Sausage Egg and Cheese, Everything Bagel, Salt & Peper) is the only true path!
Find a deli that will throw a hash brown patty in there too!
BECSP and hot sauce on a hard roll.
Bacon egg and cheese sandwiches are such a lame thing for a city to be proud of. They have that everywhere.
Disagree. Like everything in America everything has come to feel disneyfied. A lot of the working class identity and art is just gone. Sports is a metric I guess…. Make it affordable to live there again and folks will come back. It’s a character problem for me.
Ketchup is disgusting with anything other than fries
Knicks and rangers giving reps
Definitely. Found the stinkiest bum wandering the J train on my way to and from work yesterday. Dudes stench was so sour and acidic it lingered for minutes after he left. Everyone in the car was complaining.
Crime was way worse then
Bring back the 20 cent token.
90s was probably the biggest booming era financially... basically if you were broke in nyc in the 90s you were smoking crack. No excuse.
It's better but it's losing it's power. There are so many people that had to leave. It feels less human and more manufactured now.
And an orange drink, if you know, you know?
He really said you’re not a real New Yorker if you don’t know what becspk means. I’m not from New York but that’s corny as hell
Your def white, Respectfully nothing wrong but you lived a completely different NY reality than most
Early 2000s NYC was peak.
This cheered me up for some reason. 😂
And that's all it was suppose to do. Thank you for that
This made me angry for some reason 
I disagree. A lot of the negative aspects of the city as it was are back, but not a lot of the positive ones.
The price of everything has gone through the roof. People are more disconnected than ever. The yuppie types moving here on daddy's money are more insufferable than ever, and more populous than ever due to the insane cost of living driving away real residents.
A lot of the negative aspects of The City as it was are back
Like what
Even the window washers are back at the lincoln tunnel lol
Yeah man, I'm with you. These people who think there weren't always crazy, unadjusted homeless people on the streets and subways have all been here for 10-15 years tops
It's always been this way. I went to the game last night, bring playoff ticket prices back to 1994 too. Let's go Knicks!
Hahahaha delusional. NY is dead. So glad I left. $4k for a studio? I’m good thanks.
Bagels are just rolls with holes. I’ll die on this hill.
Not in NY, you must have never had a NY bagel
Dwight Gooden
Hope you are right!
Certain elements yes. If only the prices for things would go back to before!
What one second round berth does to a mf
I remember when there was a Salvation Army Thrift right off the Bedford L.
New York New York
I love my city. LFG NYC!!!! GO KNICKS!!!!
Go NY!
Fuck off with ketchup on a egg sandwich. Presumably you fuck up all kinds of sandwiches with the wrong condiment. I bet you put mustard on hamburgers.
My two side hustles aren't enough. Who's got a third?
No K on this BEC, but skewer me for mayo
I’m a native as well!! Where did you grow up? I grew up in the South Bronx, and this does not feel like old New York at all!! lol 😂 not from my vantage point.
Let's bring back those 1994 rents to really make it clear