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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
