I’M 62. STOP CALLING ME OLD!

Age Isn’t a Limitation, It’s New York’s Most Untapped Superpower

I turned 62 this year, and for some reason, people have started speaking to me in a tone usually reserved for toddlers or fragile ornaments. A little slower. A little softer. A little too careful. In New York City, the loudest, fastest, most relentlessly ambitious place on earth. I suddenly became someone to be “helped,” “assisted,” or worse, “considered old.”

What changed? Not me.
What changed was the way people look at anyone past 60: with a mix of politeness and pity, as if age automatically means decline.

It doesn’t.
And New York, of all places, should understand that better than anyone.

New York City Doesn’t Run on Youth. It Runs on Experience

Let’s be honest: this city is not powered only by 20-something tech workers and fresh graduates in Midtown cubicles. It runs because millions of New Yorkers, 60 and beyond, wake up every day and give the city its rhythm.

They are the ones:

running community boards
staffing libraries
tutoring in after-school programs
volunteering at hospitals
organizing neighborhood safety
keeping small businesses alive and raising grandkids while their own children work two jobs
Yet when we talk about “the future of the city,” conversations somehow orbit around youth, innovation, and the next generation, as if the present generation hasn’t already carried this place through multiple crises.

New York’s older residents are not a burden. They are the backbone the city forgets to name.

Ageism Is the Last Accepted Discrimination in NYC

We don’t like talking about ageism here. In a city that prides itself on diversity, nobody wants to admit that the subway of equality still skips one station.

But it does.

At 62, the assumptions come flying:

“Sir, do you need help with the stairs?”
“Ma’am, are you sure this is the right train?”
“You’re still working?”
“You’re on TikTok at this age?”

Even in workspaces, age is treated like a professional expiration date. Resumes silently filtered out. Interviews cut short. Opportunities passed over because “we want someone more energetic.”

Let me decode that: “someone younger.”

But what about stamina built through decades?
What about wisdom earned through lived experience?
What about stability, resilience, and the ability to survive in a city that has crushed many?

New York forgets that aging here is an achievement, not a flaw.

The City Keeps Getting Older, and That’s Not Bad

More than 1.4 million New Yorkers are now over 60, and by 2040, older adults will make up more than one-fifth of the city’s population.

This is not a crisis.
It’s a shift,and one we should embrace.

Aging populations around the world are pushing cities to rethink:

healthcare
urban design
transit
public safety
housing
community support

New York, as always, has the chance to lead.

Imagine a city where aging is not “dealing with decline,” but leveling up:

benches designed for conversation rather than isolation
subways with clearer signage and more elevators
small-business grants for older founders
tech classes taught for free in every borough
inter-generational programs linking youth with seniors
street redesigns for safer walking, especially in dense neighborhoods

Instead of treating older adults as people to manage, we could treat them as citizens to empower. Because here’s the truth:

People don’t stop dreaming at 60. Cities just stop noticing.

Older New Yorkers Already Carry the Emotional Labor of the City

When the pandemic hit, many New Yorkers fled to the suburbs or different states. But countless older adults stayed. They checked on neighbors. Made food runs. Called friends who were isolated. Took care of buildings. Kept block associations active. Helped distribute PPE.

Older New Yorkers preserved the soul of the city when it was at its most fragile.

Yet after the crisis eased, the same people who held the fabric together were too quickly dismissed as “old,” “at risk,” or “needing care.”

What if, instead of sidelining them, the city acknowledged their role?

New York loves resilience, until resilience comes with wrinkles.

We Need a New Definition of Aging, One That Matches This City

In New York, the age you feel rarely matches the age on your passport.

You can be:

62 and running a startup
68 and riding the R train to teach a college class
72 and dancing salsa on a Harlem sidewalk
58 and competing in the NYC Marathon
65 and taking coding classes at the library

This city is full of late bloomers, reinventions, and second chances. It is the land of unfinished stories.

So why are we still using a 1950s definition of “old”?

The truth is, I’m 62, but I’m also: curious, political, stubborn, opinionated, socially active, financially independent, sometimes tired, sometimes energetic . just like any other New Yorker.

The number is not the identity. And age is not destiny.