If that’s true, what does that make Baltimore?
Her mangy dog?
/edit: I did totally forget about Baltimore. In my defense, I haven’t been there since I was a kid. It was memorable, even then!
I’ve been in Manhattan 22 years and still haven’t found decent huevos rancheros or any place with a good green chile sauce. I self-medicate with pizza.
I’ve hardly ever mugged anyone.
Like others have mentioned, NYC is a heavily pedestrian city and one thing that annoys New Yorkers is jamming up the sidewalks. I suppose it would be like somebody just deciding to stop in the middle of the highway for the hell of it or driving slowly four abreast and making everyone behind them nuts. They don’t widen sidewalks and some avenues, like Lexington have very narrow sidewalks that barely accommodate two way foot traffic. So, do what you like, just move to the side.
I live in a ‘nice’ building and we get bugs, not so many roaches (that I can see, anyway) but ants, silverfish (what are they made of anyway? you crush them and they disappear), some ants, spiders, and these little beetle things. Nothing so much that it’s a crisis. Mice were a problem until we got Bucky, our cat. No rats or bedbugs, so far.
One characteristic about NYC that LA may or may not share is it’s excellent (for the most part) parks system. Central Park is awesome, of course, but there are hundreds of little parks, playgrounds, pools, ballfields, etc. sprinkled throughout the city that people use a lot, if just to find a shady relatively quiet spot when you want to get out of the apartment.
Apartments, well, people do what they can to make it work. Promotes family togetherness :D.
Actually, the New York street has been IME mostly gruff and no-nonsense, but not gratuitously vicious.
Of course, “the first thing anyone says to you” may be something entirely out of deep left field so you have to steel yourself for that (check out the “Overherard In New York” site)
Is your husband this guy? 
Me neither, though it’s been years since I spent four or five years there. It’s just not true people get mugged “all the time” there. Only two times people tried to mug me was in supposedly urbane Paris, France, and friends in Buffalo NY had some mugging happen.
Don’t worry about it – don’t be stupid, look like you know you’re no pigeon and you shouldn’t have to worry about much. The key is to blend in and just go with the flow.
Definitely do NOT block the sidewalk or stairs to the subway – I’d mug you myself if I saw that, and most crusty old New Yorkers would have some nasty words for you.
Yeah, apartments (for regular people) are small, supers are mostly jerks (like anywhere else), but it’s not much different than living in another city. Lose the car – you don’t want to drive in the city, at all.
I’ve been three times, the last time for about 5 weeks, mostly in Manhattan. Some of my observations.
Since cars are not the main form of transportation for most people, I love watching how people get around. My two favorite were an ultra chick hot middle aged woman on a razor scooter, and an Asian looking man in a thobe riding a kids bike with streamers coming out of the handlebars.
Chess hustlers in Columbus Park(i think) amused me also. Don’t let their homeless look fool you. These people play chess all day every day for years on end. I wonder how some of them would do in international tournaments.
I learned you can find most things cheap, you just can’t get around the rent. Just about everyone I met my age was still living with parents because of the grandfathered rent controls. One guy lied his way into section 8 housing.
I found New Yorkers to be incredible friendly, just a little more nonchalant about it. I certainly prefer it to the pretentious backstabbing southern hospitality I became accustomed to growing up in Dallas.
I heard one guy explain it like this. New Yorkers have an untrue stereotype of being jerks. Tourists love to act like New Yorkers. You end up with an island full of tourists and recent transplants being jerks mistakenly thinking they are behaving like New Yorkers, therefore fulfilling the stereotype that all New Yorkers are jerks.
I don’t know Columbus Park real well – any chance you’re thinking of Washington Square park? Good place to buy weed in early morning and hone your chess game. Bryant Park (you know, the Ghostbusters library) works for the former, though, as does any park, pretty much. Washington Square Park has a shit-ton of chess boards and no small amount of hustlers. Can you tell where I lived (most of the time)!!! There’s a damned good chess room IIRC on MacDougal IIRC that I never worked my way up to. Think Kubrick’s The Killing for reference.
Alas, I still can’t beat my chess engine on my computer on a semi-difficult level (I use Fruit, which has a good way to set parameters like protecting king safety, and so forth). Bobby Fischer I ain’t, but NYC is a great way to learn the basics of how to play chess. A lot of those cats are pretty damned good, but they only have pigeons as their competition, most times.
Oops…yes, the one next to NYU and the permanent chess tables. Its been a few years.
Defining “Super tall buildings” as being over 3 stories would be considered the mark of a rube in Des Moines.
I grew up in a city of 65,000 people that had dozens of apartment buildings that are “super tall” by that definition.