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There's an altogether appropriate (yet still depressing) piece in the Observer today that documents the decline of New Yorkers' desire to go out, marked by a current enthusiasm over grocery stores and a palpable disdain for the hip nightlife and culture that now strikes so many as too expensive, too obnoxious, and just too damn painful. And it's true, really. Whereas once the young and well-heeled would've flocked to the hotspot du jour without question, now more and more of them stay in, wanting nothing more than to avoid the cacophonous hell of a Lohan-approved night out. Have we given up?

Columnist Liz Smith, who has lived in New York since 1949 said, "I just don't go downtown anymore, and I used to go to the Village, Soho or Tribeca all the time." The best way to spend an evening these days, she said, was with a good book, television and the telephone turned off. "We're in a crush of pointless living in the interlude of pointless news, pointless publicity, pointless rushing about like lemmings to things. I don't excuse myself entirely, but I can no longer afford to keep up."

Well, that happens when you're in your goddamn eighties. But if the current culture is inclined to agree with Liz, perhaps there's a more pressing question: When did we all get so old?

N.Y. Beauties Collapse: Formerly Chichi We, Now Netflixed, Dumpy [NYO]