# For New York Dopers: What don't I know about Manhattan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 29, 2002, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719 "2002-03-29T07:07:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719/21 "2002-03-31T05:31:14Z")
_2. Wherever in Manhattan you are you run a very serious risk of being mugged._ False. _3. There are no vacant lots._ Actually, I’m surprised to see any, considering how valuable the real estate is. In my neighborhood (East Village), they’ve turned them into community gardens. \*4. Taxicab drivers are by definition rude, reckless, and greedy.\*Every cab driver I’ve ever spoken to was extremely friendly. _5. All New Yorkers speak in an incomprehensible nasal whine._ Native New Yorkers, yes, but they’re a small minority. BTW, some of my NYer friends say that what the rest of the country thinks of as a NY accent is really a Long Island accent. **TruePisces** , you can be a New Yorker after living in Long Island for a year? I thought it took about 20 years of living in the city to claim that title. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719/22 "2002-03-31T09:22:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ukulele Ike \* > \*\*…except for the “seeing the Yankees” part. > > {Blorrrrrch} \*\* Yeah, OK, I did have to hold my nose at that part (Baltimore native here ;)). But I did see how it fit in context with the rest of the post. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719/23 "2002-03-31T11:54:06Z")
_Originally posted by biggirl_ > [@](#): > > But that was 30 years ago. This is the best city in the world. New York can take anything you throw at it and come out smelling like a, well. . .a hot dog with mustard and sauerkraut. 🙂 Now you’re talking. I’ve never tried the hot dogs at Nathan’s, of course; and they do have those big pretzels out here, which I have eaten with mustard. Well, perhaps they’re best-tasting in New York… 🙂 The Yankees? I can take them or leave them. I get angry enough to chew nails when I read in the paper, or hear on TV, about Steinbrenner’s latest inane act, and I consider Jake Ruppert a blot on society–but I cried hard when I read about Lou Gehrig’s death; and in the 70s, when I went to Dodger and Angel games a lot, before the All-Star Game, I _always_ chose Thurman Munson, the Yankees’ star catcher, on the ballot…then _he_ died tragically… ☹ Furthermore: In the original _Straight Dope_ book, Cecil mentioned the “New York _Times_ mystique.” In a book titled _The Best, Worst and Most Unusual,_ the author says other newspapers are merely “regional collections of press releases” and the New York _Times_ is the country’s only _real_ newspaper. Talk about snobbery… ---
**Author:** ![TruePisces](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/truepisces/32/13628_2.png) [@TruePisces](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruePisces)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719/24 "2002-03-31T12:29:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by chula \* > \*\ ***TruePisces** , you can be a New Yorker after living in Long Island for a year? I thought it took about 20 years of living in the city to claim that title. \*\* Well I’ll be damned if I call myself a Floridian living in New York! For personal reasons, I’m never going back to that state. So, since I’ve been living here, regardless of amount of time - and since I grew up Upstate), yeah, I consider myself a New Yorker. And anyone that has a problem with that can just go jump in the East River. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![cagiva650](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cagiva650](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cagiva650)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719/25 "2002-03-31T13:49:08Z")
I love NY by proxy, I dont think I could live there though. Too much “energy” in that town I think I’d short circuit right there on the spot.But I would Love to visit again! And I have never tasted bagels like the bagels I had from a Staten Island bakery - ever. It must be the water. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2002, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719/26 "2002-03-31T14:43:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Annie-Xmas \* > \*\*All these posts, and nobody has mentioned that MANHATTAN IS EXPENSIVE? Don’t get me wrong–it is a great city, and I wouldn’t move out of New Jersey to go anywhere but there, but it costs. My advice to you: put all the clothes you think you’ll need in one pile, and all the money in another. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. \*\* Yes, it is - but part of the reason it’s expensive is that private-sector salaries tend to be commensurate. Of course, public and non-profit salaries don’t, which is why Manhattan is becoming less diverse (in fact, about the only thing keeping some neighborhoods diverse at all is rent stabilization/control, and those apartments are very hard to find anymore). One thing I’ve heard old-timers lament is that there’s almost no cheap, crummy housing left in Manhattan. It used to be possible for an actor wannabe to come here, get a cater-waiter job and live in some hovel in Hell’s Kitchen or the Lower East Side. Hell’s Kitchen is now so solidly gentrified that in real estate ads it’s retaken its old name of Clinton; and the LES? Nothing available. Even Alphabet City’s safe for yuppies now - friends of mine just closed on a new condo on 7th between B and C. One’s a small-animal oncologist at Animal Medical Center, and the other’s in design at Conde Nast. So that’s intimidating for people moving here - you just can’t do it without a well-paying job waiting for you. ---
**Author:** ![Wonko\_The\_Sane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@Wonko\_The\_Sane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wonko_The_Sane)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2002, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719/27 "2002-04-01T03:21:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dougie\_monty \* > \*\* > > 1. The traffic suffers from permanent gridlock, so cars never move at all. > [😛 to me] \*\* When it gets really bad, the traffic starts backing up! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-new-york-dopers-what-dont-i-know-about-manhattan/100719.md?page=1)