Steve Cuozzo uses that as a jumping off point in a column at the Post. Drunk brunch, and drinking in general among the millennial set, is a citywide scourge, he writes.
There’s never been as much binge boozing as there is today. It stretches far beyond the Lower East Side’s infamous “Hell Zone” to Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg and Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side. In the Meatpacking District, vomit on the pavement makes me cringe more than smelly carcasses once did. Even hotel rooftops and high-end restaurants are affected: Top chef Michael White actually employs a bouncer to stand on Lafayette Street to protect his Italian trattoria Osteria Morini from “young, affluent, intoxicated people stumbling from one place to the next,” a manager explained to me.
Any explanations?
A few causes of this drunken oblivion are obvious. Affluent young singles cluster in neighborhoods oversaturated with saloons. Restaurants promote “beverage programs” more than food.
Some media outlets seem bent on driving half the youthful population into AA. Time Out New York’s September issue feature on the craft-beer scene is blurbed on the magazine’s cover as “67% information, 33% inebriation.”
Also! Citing stats that show Manhattan is home to 38 percent more women than men among recent college graduates, Cuozzo believes the imbalance is driving this demographic to drink.
What’s that got to do with binge drinking? When gender expectations are wildly out of sync, anxiety is soothed with alcohol’s fast-acting flood of relief.
