A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from January 12, 2010
“If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault”

The actress and New York City resident Myrna Loy (1905-1993) wrote in her 1987 autobiography:
 
“If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault. Something’s always happening. But in Hollywood, if you’re no longer reigning, you simply don’t matter.”
   
Loy’s “If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault” quip has been widely used in New York City guidebooks. The sentiment has also been expressed by others. A columnist in 1947 wrote: “I don’t see how anybody can get bored in New York. There are a million things to do and see.” In 1973, an Associated Press story by Lynne Olson used the Loy quip’s same words: “If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault.”
 
   
Wikipedia: Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy (August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934). Her successful pairing with William Powell resulted in fourteen films together, including several subsequent Thin Man films.
 
10 March 1947, Tipton (IN) Tribune, “Looking at Life” by Erich Brandeis, pg. 2, col. 2:
I don’t see how anybody can get bored in New York.
 
There are a million things to do and see. Just take a short walk or a ride on a bus will take the boredom out of you.
 
5 April 1955, Waterloo (IA) Daily Courier, “The Marquee” by Dick Kleiner, pg. 25, col. 2:
“I think I’ll like living here,” she (Hildegarde Neff—ed.) says. “You simply can’t get bored in New York.” Which is one girl’s opinion, solely.
 
Google News Archive
9 April 1973, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA), pg. 15, col. 2:   
Single women in New York
BY LYNNE OLSON
Associated Press Writer
(...)
If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault.
 
Google Books
Myrna Loy:
Being and becoming

By Myrna Loy with James Kotsilibas-Davis
New York, NY: Knopf
1987
Pg. 293:
But I had established vital patterns of living in New York and felt more at home, more productive there. If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault. Something’s always happening. But in Hollywood, if you’re no longer reigning, you simply don’t matter.
 
New York (NY) Times
Ground Zero’s Ephemeral Elegance
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: February 27, 2004
(...)
Around the perimeter of the station are white scrims made of polyester knit mesh with a fire-retardant finish. These function as billboards for memorable quotations about New York, rendered in Bodoni letters 17.3 inches high. Or, to use a typographic measure, 1,824 points.
 
They run from the flippant (’‘If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault’’—Myrna Loy) to the boastful (’‘New York is where the future comes to audition’’—Edward I. Koch) to the lyrical (’‘New York is perhaps the world’s greatest thoroughfare’’—Walt Whitman).
 
’‘The quotes help make it an authentic New York place,’’ Mr. Gericke said. ‘‘When you’re there and you read them, you have a sense of the city and this emotional connection that people have always had to it.’’
 
Google Books
New York City
Edited by Gwen Cannon
Greenville, SC: Michelin Apa Publications
2007
Pg. 347:
As Myrna Loy once said, “If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault.”
   
Google Books
Frommer’s New York City 2009
By Brian Silverman
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
2008
Pg. 233:
“If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault.”
—Myrna Loy

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityNames/Phrases • Tuesday, January 12, 2010 • Permalink


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