Well, if you had *told *us you were coming, we’d have straightened up!
(And yes, if I am out late at night I still carry a “mugger $20,” or at least keep an extra “me $20” tucked away somewhere)
And when they’ve had it for a whole century of often bare minimal just-keep-it-rolling attention.
But yes, it’s true that compared to DC, NYC does show a greater tolerance for a notable degree of public funk, that can surprise us visitors. Then again, compared to DC so do a whole bunch of other American cities. In NYC’s case, that density of humanity leaves its imprint.
Can I say something? As a native Angelino (none of this feminine suffix bullshit – no one in LA does that), this thread is fucking embarrassing.
The general statement, “muggers want money, not to beat you up” is sort of factually true. I would suspect those who think its a way brilliant plan are not 100% in their right senses. People don’t mug you for money to pay their grandma’s rent, after all. If they need $30 for their fix, they’re going to be just as unhappy with $20 as nothing.
I grew up in NYC, and I live in NYC, and 90% of my family lives in NYC and the last time I knew someone personally who got mugged, it was… um… yeah it was 1991. I was a sophomore in high school.
Based on my experiences, I presumed this incident did not take place recently. Say, in this decade. Was that wrong?
Sorry.
I’m shocked that a young hipster like you can’t find crack for $20 
I’ve only lived here since the 1960’s, but my family has been here since the 1700’s. Does that count in the pissing contest?
Okay, that was unnecessarily harsh, but this OP does seem to be something out of “Little House on the Prairie.” Serious question – I’m honestly curious – where do you live?
Not a New Yorker, a Washingtonian, but I know quite a few people who have been mugged. Broadly speaking, there are two types of muggings: getting jumped and beat up with the robbery almost as an afterthought; and someone walking up to you and saying something like “you know what this is,” where you give up the loot and the robber goes on his way. As in most things, dealing with a professional is always more pleasant than having to deal with entry level thugs.
I LOLd.
Sure you win. You didn’t answer my question though. Do you know anyone who has been mugged in NYC this decade?
And, as a resident of many years, do you honestly believe the street crime rate is the same as it was in 1985, and any apparent reductions result from the NYPD having a touch of fun with the stats?
We have lots of BBQ here in NYC but most of it is in the form of sit down restaurants in touristy areas. I am a little sad by the lack of Tex-Mex food though. We have a ton of ethnic diversity here and that has an impact on our restaurants so while we don’t have Tex-Mex we do have Russian, Tibetan, Ethiopian, Scandinavian, and all sorts of other things you may not be able to find in a less diverse area of the country.
As far as the mugging goes I don’t know anyone who has ever carried “mugging money” and the only person I know that was ever actually mugged was a woman who had a cast on her leg and was hobbling around her neighborhood completely shitfaced at 3 in the morning. If you set yourself up as a perfect target then you might need to worry about being mugged but most people I know have never been mugged and aren’t worried that it is going to happen in the future.
We do have rats and roaches and stuff but I don’t know anyone who has ever had an infestation. We’ve never had an issue except for when we lived in a really horrid basement apartment for a while with lots of flooding and poor maintenance and even then the only bugs we saw with any regularity were house centipedes. If you don’t like bugs please don’t click on that link…those fuckers are creepy! While you will see the occasional rat in the garbage or in the sewer or the occasional roach on the street mostly apartments that have even the slightest bit of upkeep don’t have any kind of infestation.
As far as the talking faster, moving quickly, and getting angry more easily some of that is accurate and some is not. You do tend to move more quickly here because you have to, really. If you want to get off of the train before people start pushing their way onto the train you need to do so in a timely fashion. As far as the getting angry I don’t think that is specific to New Yorkers as a whole, I think you are just forced to interact with 8,000 more people in a day here than you would be in another city so a small percentage of those people are going to be upset or mentally ill or otherwise unpleasant to be around. The angry people and religious zealots and mentally ill individuals in your town are all either at home or in a private vehicle so you don’t run into them with the kind of frequency that you do in New York.
I don’t know anything about our street gangs. I’ve never seen one or, if I have, they were well behaved enough that I didn’t automatically peg them as a street gang.
Ehr… IANANewYorker but the idea of “over 3 stories” being “super tall” is, indeed, manga-level adorable.
I’ve lived in various places in SoCal all my life - mostly grew up in Long Beach, with stopovers in Riverside (ewww), Canoga Park, Burbank, Pasadena, and I’m now in Alhambra about 1/2 mile from Cal State LA. Last year when I was looking to buy a house I was searching heavily in El Sereno, Hollywood, & East LA.
Actually, I remembered something - one of the first places I lived on my own, back in Long Beach, was in downtown on the 2nd floor of a 6 story building. >_< I’d completely forgotten that! Still though, in my experience, residential buildings over 2 stories are very much the exception, unless you’re in the heart of Downtown.
Explain New York to an Angelina
Way overcrowded, terribly expensive, dirty, and full of rude people. I think that pretty much covers it.
I gots yer doity, expensive, rude and overcrowded right over here.
Ex-ACT-ly!
I can see this being true in Canoga Park or Riverside (CP is like 30 miles outside of LA and Riverside is at least twice that), but you found this to be the case when you were house-hunting in Hollywood? Really? All right then.
Washingtonians generally think that some things, like a urine-free morning commute, are worth paying a little extra for. If you disagree, that’s certainly your prerogative. But we enjoy the lack of urine. We also enjoy cooling our stations in the summer, and heating them in winter.
As for enlarging the system - well, why would we want to do that? DC’s a smaller city. (We just cram more awesome into that space than NYC does). And in addition to serving the District in classy, air-conditioned, urine-free style, Metro also serves a sizeable chunk of Northern Virginia and Maryland.
Finally, we have adorable pandas on our paper farecards (though not our plastic SmarTrip cards).
/Note: I love NYC, too - but you can’t blame me for poking a bit of fun now and again, can you?
I’m sorry, that was rude of me, wasn’t it? I’ll give you a heads-up next time. And bring a tasteful gift! Maybe a nice bottle of Virginia or Maryland wine. Or pie!
Never, especially when you bust out the phrases like
Let’s never fight again!
Despite the fact that the Metro does go into VA and MD, that only seems notable because the city limits of DC are so confined. The Red Line, which goes there & back again to Maryland, and the A train, which travels entirely within NYC’s city limits, are both about 31 miles long.
I’m definitely Little House on the Prairie, and the idea of going to New York is both awesome and terrifying. I’d probably start crying the first time anyone said anything to me. Where I come from, if you step on someone’s toe, both the offender and the offendee apologize to each other!
Bwahahahaha! I’m not even from New York, and that made me guffaw. DC is a horrible city, urine free or not!
Of course, I say that from Filthadelphia, the ugly stepsister of the entire east coast.