I’ve never been there, but I have spent time and lived in several of the 10 biggest cities in the US. When I was in Chicago I never felt unsafe or intimidated by it.
But the cultural meme that NYC is this dangerous, intimidating place is pretty common in popular media. What do other people feel about it? It is my understanding that most large cities have seen large crime declines so I am sure it is nothing like in the 70s no matter where you go.
Having said that the high real estate costs and the long, stressful commutes destroy any desire I have to live in a giant city like Chicago or NYC.
From my experience as a Chicagoan, to keep it brief:
Interesting? Yes.
Intimidating? Perhaps in the sense of a large, highly congested, fast-paced city is. I grew up in Chicago, and I felt like a farmboy visiting the big city for the first time when I visited NYC.
Scary? Not at all. Once again, my metric is Chicago, but even as an outsider who didn’t really know the city, I never felt unsafe navigating the city on foot or via public transportation.
What made NYC make you feel that way as a native Chicagoan (like a farm boy in the big city for the first time)? I assumed that because I feel comfortable in Chicago that NYC would have the same impact on me.
New York City is actually consistently rated one of the safest large cities in the US and in the world. Its actually quite difficult to go anywhere that’s actively dangerous as a tourist.
Its pretty densely packed and the transit system can feel overwhelming, there’s an incredible amount to see and do, I guess that can be intimidating, but its also why you visit NYC.
As a Midwestern boy, I’ve found New York to be much faster paced than any other major city I’ve been to. Of course some people will find that intimidating.
Interesting? Yes, because NYC is more 24/7 than most places. I’ve seen traffic in Manhattan at 2:00 a.m. that rivaled midday in a large-ish downtown. There’s literally always some place to go and something to do.
Scary? The only time I’ve ever been even a little scared was on my first trip, in the early 80s, before they chased the lowlife out of Midtown.
I moved there from a small city and had no problem adjusting. I loved it, but we didn’t feel like we’d be able to raise a family there on what we made.
I’m old enough to remember NYC being depicted as a crime-infested nightmare in the '80s and '90s, but I don’t think such depictions are common anymore and by the time I first visited the city in 2007 it had been pretty well cleaned up for some time.
It’s intimidating in the sense that any big city might be intimidating (noise, crowds, etc.), but NYC is safer than many other cities in the US.
I’ve lived in the orbit of NYC for almost all my life, and I’m in the city frequently.
Interesting: Absolutely
Intimidating: Not to me because I’m used to it. I’d imagine it would be pretty big and confusing to a newcomer at first, but you’d adjust quickly - especially if you’re comfortable in Chicago and the like.
Scary: Not even a little bit. I concur with all the others who say it’s very different than it was in the '70s and '80s.
I’ve only been to Manhattan, but as someone who grew up in DFW, it is a little intimidating. That’s a long expanse of large buildings. I found it pretty interesting, the city has a lot to do.
I didn’t find it scary, though. It seems a lot harder to end up in the wrong part of town in Manhattan than it does in DFW. But, that’s not all of NYC by a long shot.
I visited it for the first time in 1998, as a senior in college. It was just so much bigger and more concentrated than Chicago, at least to me. It’s like if you took the Loop, doubled (at least) the concentration of people, and extended the size of it an order of magnitude. Chicago, once again, to me, felt positively laid-back compared to New York. I just thought I knew what a big city was like, but New York took me a day or two to adjust to.
I should say, I didn’t feel uncomfortable, but it was a wee bit of adjustment for me to get used to the pace. There’s only a small handful of cities where I felt that way. Oddly enough, London (another big city), was not one of them. The other two where I felt I needed a day or two to adjust were Moscow and Mumbai. Every other large city I’ve been to I’ve felt pretty well adjusted to upon my first step in the city.
Yes, New York is interesting, more than any other major American city and on a level with the great metropolises of the world, in a way that places like Chicago are not.
New York is not scary or intimidating. It’s crowded and hectic and expensive and lots of it is covered in garbage and smelling like urine.
pulykamell: Interesting. I’ve been lucky enough to make several trips to London over the past few years, and the crowds drove me CRAZY. As a tourist, a lot of the stuff I wanted to do and see was in Westminster, Piccadilly, etc., which is probably the reason; as a New Yorker, I know enough to stay away from hellholes like Times Square.
If I ever get thrown out of New York for bad behavior, my top choices for a new hometown would be Paris, Vienna, or Barcelona. All of which are noticeably more laid-back than New York or London. Just set me down at the nearest cafe and order me some wine, pastry, or tapas.
I’m wondering if it’s the claustrophobia (or whatever similar idea I’m grasping at) that made me feel that way. While London was certainly as crowded as New York, it still felt “airier” to me than New York, probably because of the lack of endless walls of skyscrapers and just tall buildings in general.
And, yeah, while I’ve not been to Barcelona, Vienna was positively serene compared with New York or London. Hell, even Chicago. Paris had much more of a “pulse,” but still is pretty manageable and relatively laid-back for its size. Berlin is probably the city I’ve been to that is closest, to me, in terms of the feel of energy to Chicago.
“Overbearing” might be the word you want. Midtown Manhattan, with all the skyscrapers and their shadows, gives you that feeling of oppression.
I agree that Berlin has a “Chicagoy” vibe. On the whole, though, I’d rather live in Chicago. Good food, good theater, good music, and it lacks Berlin’s almost Los Angeles-type SPRAWL.
Now, just to be clear, New York City is pretty awesome. I love visiting it. I can never see myself living there, but it’s a fun, interesting city, and I can’t help but feed off its energy. It seems like whenever I’m in a creative rut and visit it, I’m rejuvenated and want to do more. But I want the OP to understand there might be an acclimatization period involved. Then again, there may not. But it is one of the great cities of the world, there’s no doubt about that. And it does not, at all, feel like a crime-infested hellhole. If I were to be randomly dropped into a Chicago neighborhood vs a New York City neighborhood, I’d pick the latter.
Interesting? Oh yeah. Five boroughs worth of tons of stuff to see and do.
Intimidating? Depends. I don’t like tons of people so times square and packed subway cars can be a little rough but otherwise not really. When you get out of midtown manhattan it’s actually a bit more easygoing.
I lived in or around NYC from the ages of 24-49, and never found it scary or intimidating, not even on Day #1. Always interesting, to say the least. I miss it.