Explain New York to an Angelina

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that her statement was mostly a joke. LA has high rises, they are just less common. The average apartment building is between 2 and 5 stories. It is the land of earthquakes after all.

As a recent transplant from LA to the East coast (new jersey but I have gotten the chance to spend time in Manhattan and the Bronx) some things that havent been mentioned.

It is not a car culture like you are used to. Things that are really close together take forever to get to by car because things weren’t planned with cars in mind. That said stuff is really close together. Like Midtown Manhattan to downtown Manhattan is smaller than Santa Monica but it has dozens of seperate little sub neighborhoods.

The pizza is great and crazy cheap, the Mexican food is not bad but …not right. It’s either too authenticly homeland or way too gringo (and too expensive) and the Chinese food is very good but different.

People tailgate like it is not unusual to leave less than a car length between you and the car in front of you and the first person in the left turn lane almost always jumps the light rather than waiting for a traffic break.

People are very friendly. Not southern hospitality friendly, but not isolated and stand offish like in LA. If you go into a shop the shopkeeper and even other customers are likely to strike up conversations with you about things that have nothing to do with shopping in that store. It’s weird. I like it, but its weird.

I’ll add more as I think of it.

22

No cheap, on-every-corner Tex-Mex? No BBQ? How can people live like that?

23

I had to pay $10 for a burrito the other day. It wasn’t even particularly good. It’s like every Mexican place is El Coyote (I am assuming the Angelinos know El Coyote). Ok, but very white 1950s style and expensive. If not its a very upscale authentic place serving Oxacanyo style food for $30 a plate.

There is a place in my town in New Jersey (one town over really, but its close enough to be the same) that is sort of a cross betwen wahoo’s and Sharky’s, but not as good as either. It’s really the closest thing I have found though.

24

Be strong, homie!

I’ll be thinking of you when I pick up a dozen made-by-hand-5-minutes-ago tortillas from the taqueria a block from home and make quesadillas with just-might-listeria cheese this weekend.

25

Regarding Asians in New York City: Many people from California are surprised to hear that Chinatown in New York is far larger than Chinatown in San Francisco.

(Actually, there are several Chinatowns in NYC, I’m talking about the aggregate.)

26

Nitpick: it’s Angeleno/a, not Angelino.

27

Auto correct on my phone foils me again. I caught it subbing Luke for like.

28

My daughter has lived in NYC for 22 years and never been mugged. Actually, it really is the safest city in the US. Not least because people hardly ever get into a car and I have never heard of a collision between subway trains.

She lives in a converted 3-storey row house in Brooklyn, occupying the lower two floors. They have a small garden and grow tomatoes and maybe a couple other things. There are also single-family houses in Brooklyn at least. When she lived in Manhattan (Stuyvesant Town) she was in a 12-storey building, but she had to leave when the apartment complex was sold to a groups that promised to triple the rents over five years. They do have a car, but use it only for things like going to Costco. Otherwise he and her husband commute by subway (and her husband also by PATH to Hoboken).

No mice and I have never seen bugs there. There is one wonderful Mexican restaurant near her, but Mexican is not what you find all over. But the food is generally wonderful, including the street food. There are Chinese restaurants everywhere, not just in Chinatown. Not sure about smoking, but there are fewer and places where you can. There was a proposal to ban smoking in parks, including Central Park. Not sure if it passed. I generally find New Yorkers friendly. Obviously there are exceptions. Theater is big, but awfully expensive. Movies are ordinary priced, so I’ve been to movies more than theater.

29

Keep in mind there are large parts of New City that look like this. (this this this this) And if you go into the “outer boroughs” you’ll see houses like this. (this this this this) So there are plenty of New Yorkers, even in Manhattan, who don’t live in giant apartment buildings.

30

NYC gal here. Don’t let the name fool you!

Everyone lives in really tiny really expensive apartments in super tall buildings (over 3 stories). Even in the nice buildings, there are bugs and mice.

Expensive, yes. Not always tiny. You aren’t a real NY’er unless you can remove your shoe and squash a cockroach without missing a beat in a conversation. Most places are treated monthly by an exterminator.

Nobody has a lawn, and hardly anyone has a car. A lot of people don’t have a driver’s license at all.

In upper Manhattan, there a few houses with yards. Like maybe 4 or 5. Most adults do eventually get a license, but it is much later in life than the rest of the country. As in you are at least 21.

*People seem to get mugged all the time. (Mugging is when you’re a pedestrian and another pedestrian robs you, right? I’ve never been certain, exactly.) *

That’s what it is called, but it isn’t something people routinely worry about in most neighborhoods. Most people do carry a few bucks to give to a mugger, just in case.

*There are lots of Europeans-from-Europe and Puerto Ricans, but not as many Asians and hardly any Mexicans. *

Depends where you are standing.

*Lots more people seem to smoke there. *

Not really. For the most part, smokers are a bit ashamed to be one.

Schools have numbers (like P.S. 273) instead of names (like Luther Burbank Elementary).

They used to all be numbered, now a lot have been renamed.

People talk a lot faster, move quicker, and get angry more easily.

Yes, yes and not so much anger as it is speaking up or speaking out.

There is a bigger variety of street food.

Filthy street cart food is viewed as a delicacy, lol. I’m kidding about the filthy. Well, sometimes. You can get anything from a cart somewhere.

*Street gangs are different somehow? Not sure about this one. Maybe more likely for white kids to be in them? *

You watch way too much tv.

Plays are considered more important and interesting than movies.

True.

Also:

NY’ers dont pay retail.

Everyone knows someone who knows a guy who can get you a deal on _______.

31

We think the same thing about the West Coast and pizza.

We really don’t have great Mexican, but I am hopeful that will improve now that Mexicans are one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups (still very small compared to California, though). One of my favorite street foods right now is the Kimchi Taco truck.

Boyz N the Hood came out when I was in college, or just out of college, or whatever, but living in a crap student share apartment in NYC’s East Village, and I remember watching it with a group of friends and the entire premise of the movie was undercut by the fact that we couldn’t stop talking about how awesome it would be to live in those nice houses with big yards. They had YARDS! WTF was their problem?

Okay, obviously now I am older and have more perspective, but that still came up when watching The Shield – those houses are NICE.

Speaking as someone who has lived in NYC for over half her life, everything I know about gangs in New York I learned from watching The Warriors.

32

Heh. The three stories thing was semi-facetious, but it’s true that I can only think of one person I’ve ever known who lived in a three-story apartment complex, and nobody who lived in four-or-more stories.

Thanks for the reality check in general. grin I like learning about other places, and because I am unlikely ever to go to NYC (Husband went once and hated it, has vowed never to return) it’s good to have my image adjusted to fit closer to reality.

33

I’ve never heard of this, nor have I ever met someone who’s confessed to doing it. Do you really know people who carry around “mugger money”, just in case? Huh.

To the OP, if you really want a better idea of the good side of New York and must get it from the media, you should watch some Woody Allen films.

34

So what’s the most surprising things you learned so far?

Any follow up questions?

35

In terms of the driver’s license, I would suspect that people who already have a driver’s license are going to keep it. Down here in Virginia, once you get your license, you can pretty much just keep renewing it every so often and, if you are not driving, you aren’t going to be racking up lots of traffic points that endanger your license. And, at least down here, you don’t have to own a car to have a license.

If you already know how to drive, and can drive safely, why not just keep it around so that you can rent a car for special occasions, or rent a car elsewhere in the country or world when you travel?

36

Yes. And 4+ story residential buildings in LA are strictly luxury class.

But in a different world…In my entire county in Wisconsin, there are no buildings larger than TWO stories except for the Maritime Museum which has an observation deck in a tower. Three stories or more for a residential building would require elevators, increasing the construction cost beyond reason.

Oh, and I’m not counting lighthouses.

37

Most people I know who have a license, keep it current even if it is rarely used. The reason quite a lot of people in NYC don’t have a DL, is not because they learned to drive and then stopped, but because they never learned to drive.

3.3 million NYC residents hold a driver’s license. (population, 8.1 million residents)

38

Everyone lives in really tiny really expensive apartments in super tall buildings (over 3 stories).
For the most part this is true of Manhattan and much of NYC in general. As you get further out into Brooklyn or Queens, residences get more suburban.

Even in the nice buildings, there are bugs and mice.
Not true.

Nobody has a lawn, and hardly anyone has a car. A lot of people don’t have a driver’s license at all.
Generally true, although some people do keep cars in garages.

People seem to get mugged all the time. (Mugging is when you’re a pedestrian and another pedestrian robs you, right? I’ve never been certain, exactly.)
In ten years of living here, I don’t know a single person who has been mugged. NYC is an extremely safe city for its size.

There are lots of Europeans-from-Europe and Puerto Ricans, but not as many Asians and hardly any Mexicans.
There are lots of everyone here. But compared to LA, you probably won’t get a sense that half the people are Mexican or Asian. Probably more black people than LA as well. Irish, Italian, Jewish and Russian are also common.

People talk a lot faster, move quicker, and get angry more easily.
“Excuse me sir, can you tell me how to get to West 53rd or should I just go ahead and fuck myself?”

I would say that people tend to be in a hurry and mostly disregard each other, but are usually friendly enough.

There is a bigger variety of street food.
Yes. There are also a lot of really good restaurants of all kinds.

Street gangs are different somehow? Not sure about this one. Maybe more likely for white kids to be in them?
There isn’t anything like the stereotypical “Colors” style of gangbangers in NYC. You don’t have neighborhoods where everyone wears red or blue and you’ll get jumped if you wear the wrong color. Street gangs would most likely consist of local groups of youth from particular ethnic neighborhood (Italian, Black, Chinese, etc) although many of these old neighborhoods like Little Italy, Harlem and various parts of Brooklyn are heavily gentrified.

Plays are considered more important and interesting than movies.
You can see movies anywhere. There’s only one Broadway (and it happens it be in NYC). But movies are popular as well.

One thing you didn’t mention, is that people do seem to drink a lot in NYC. Probably because there is a bar on every corner in every neighborhood, they are open until 4, apartments are typically too small to entertain and no one has to drive, people in NYC spend a lot of time in bars.

39

Not all of them are that tiny or that expensive, nor are all of the buildings that large. There aren’t too many residential homes in Manhattan, so it’s true most people live in apartment buildings. They’re not all large, though.

I’m not sure how to respond to this. Houses in the suburbs have bugs sometimes. You’ll find bugs anyplace you find people because that’s where many bugs want to be. Do you mean every apartment has roaches or bedbugs or some kind of infestation? They certainly do not.

Relatively few people have cars, but it’s not nobody. Lawns are rare because few people live in residential housing, but public gardens are not rare.

I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t have a driver’s license. You need ID even if you don’t drive.

Not true. It’s a city of 8 million people, so you can find a lot of things if you look, but it’s very safe. My girlfriend once had her purse stolen while she was on the subway (this was almost a decade ago), but I’ve never known anyone else who has been robbed here.

Could not be more wrong. I don’t know how many people come here specifically from Mexico - I assume you’re using that word as a synonym for Latino - but more than a quarter of all NYC residents are Latino and about 12 percent are Asian. (Cite.)

You can’t smoke in bars and restaurants here, and you can’t smoke in public places like parks either. There may be more smokers here than in California, but the city has adopted some of the same policies that California did with regard to smoking.

New Yorkers aren’t angry people. They respect competence and get annoyed at people who are doing stupid or thoughtless things. To me personally, that means that if you want to take a picture of a building or a friend, don’t stand in the middle of the sidewalk and prevent a bunch of people from walking around you. New Yorkers are generally happy to get where you’re going if you need directions.

Hell yeah.

I couldn’t tell you. There are gangs and there are criminals, but it’s not something that’s likely to be a problem if you visit.

Most of the shit on Broadway was a movie before it became a play. They can be equally stupid. That being said, theater is an important part of the culture here, which is a great thing. That does not only mean Broadway. There’s theater everywhere. Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway are both recognized institutions and there’s a lot of theater outside of that, too. And there’s Shakespeare in the Park.

40

:smiley: This is such an exquisite archetype of the SoCal view of the order of the universe.

However they seem to have been largely whomped into submission during the Bloomberg regime and they stay in their places.

No, there’s cheap on-every-corner Halal. For a general sense of the street- and small-merchant food scene in the middle of Manhattan, you can have a look at midtownlunch.com