Is NYC as interesting, intimidating or scary as it is made out to be

In My Humble Opinion
21

That’s really a thing of the past from the 1970s and 80s, on how they showed NYC in movies and TV shows. Many people thought the scenes in the TV show Hill Street Blues were NYC, but they were actually scenes of the Chicago area.

You get around NYC by either walking, taking a cab or figuring out the subway system. Most people don’t drive around NYC because it’s expensive to park. People who have never been to NYC, can use street view in Google Maps to get an idea of what the streets actually look like for the places they intend to visit.

22

I grew up in a big city–Atlanta.

NYC is an intimidating place. Even though I am familiar with the city (it used to be my regular hang-out when I lived in NJ), I still feel like Country Mouse when I visit.

For some reason, the harshness of the city always hits me when I’m standing on a subway platform. In the summer, it’s burning up hot. In the winter, it’s freezing cold. And if you can’t stand, well, sucks to be you. It also sucks for you if you’re afraid of rats, of germs and grime, and of people. Or if you don’t like loud noises, like the sound of trains make when they bypass a station, it also sucks. When the train comes, there’s no time to hover there at the doors and contemplate whether its the right one. You need to either get on or get out of the way. GET OUT THE WAY! People ain’t got time for your dawdling, yo.

23

I just visited Manhattan for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I loved it and can’t wait to go back. Compared to Chicago, it is on a larger scale and dirtier. I didn’t feel intimidated at all, but I love big cities, so I imagine if you are not used to the big-city vibe it could be intimidating. But if you like Chicago I think you would like New York. Well, Manhattan anyway, I have not been to the other boroughs.

24

I grew up in Houston, and had lived in Dallas for nearly 10 years by the time I first went to NYC.

Interesting? Absolutely. In many ways, it’s where the action is in the US. You have titans of industry, entertainment luminaries, culinary rock stars, real rock stars, sports figures, etc… all here, as well as a pretty good dose of history and culture. Plus, it’s well-nigh ubiquitous in popular culture- the standard “urban” landscape is always somewhere in the 5 boroughs, even if they don’t explicitly say so. Sitcoms, dramas, movies, etc… all have been set here for decades. It’s fascinating from that perspective.

Intimidating? Only in the sense that NYC seems to be MORE <whatever> than everywhere else. For example, built-up urban sprawl is like 90% of the city, while in other places, like say Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Kansas City, etc… that sort of built-up area is maybe 15-20% at best. Also, the sheer weight of the stuff listed under “Interesting?” is an intimidating factor. What do you do? What do you see? Where do you eat? You can easily spend a weekend in NYC and only scratch the surface. Finally, the pace of the place is exhausting if you’re from somewhere lower-key. I’ve traveled in many parts of Europe, and several other huge cities, and nowhere have I had that feeling of exhaustion at the end of the day like NYC. It’s like your internal tachometer runs about 15% faster than usual there.

**Scary? ** Not in the least, and I accidentally took an extended pedestrian journey through the middle of the Bronx. (my wife wanted to go to the Arthur Ave. Little Italy, except she got confused about where it was, and we got off at the wrong subway stop, and walked like 17 blocks to get there.) I mean, if you’re scared by minorities or close quarters, then it might be scary, but in terms of crime or urban decay, not at all. There are parts of southern Dallas and southern Houston that I wouldn’t go unarmed to, but I never had that feeling in NYC.

25

I’d say it’s interesting, somewhat intimidating (if you’re not used to the city), but not scary.

On the last bit, I’ve also heard people question that. They assume NY is this hyper violent and hard place, when it really isn’t. Parts of it are (as with anywhere), but I’ve felt comfortable in NYC.

26

My commute isn’t actually that stressful. I step out of my appartment in New Jersey, hop on a ferry and in 10-15 minutes I’m at the World Financial Center.

It’s a different story if you’re taking the 4/5/6 from the Upper East Side.

I think you mean the urban core / central business districts are a lot bigger than other cities. Generally “sprawl” refers to the low-density suburban subdividsions, strip malls and office parks that spread for miles in every direction. Here’s a quick test. If your neighborhood is a roughly 1 mile square “superblock” borderd by multi-lane roads you wouldn’t feel comfortable walking across, you might live in “sprawl”.

That said, the “sprawl” of New York City includes a more or less unbroken sea of suburbs stretching across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Long Island.

One interesting thing about Manhattan is every now and then a building that would be the tallest building in most other cities, just suddenly appears our of nowhere and I have no idea they were building it.

I never found New York scary. It’s more Seinfeld and How I Met Your Mother than The Warriors or Escape From New York.

New York is interesting, however, I am going to say that with one caveat. It really requires that aa significant part of what you find “interesting” involves bars, restaurants, night clubs, shows and other forms of “consumption”. When I lived in Boston, it seemed like I used to golf, ski, play hockey, kayak, go to the beach and do a lot of other stuff besides just drink and eat in restauarnts. Not that it’s impossible to do these things in Manhattan. But without a car, there really is a tendency to not do things that require a car.

27

This is true because NYC is a mess. What you get there is what you get when you cram that many people into that small an area anywhere. It’s loud, it stinks to high heavens (I’ve thankfully never smelled anything like it) and its ugly as sin (filthy, deteriorated). Add to that it is impossible to get from one place to another in a timely fashion; everything costs 10x what it does in any other place in the country; everyone there is rude and obnoxious; and unless you are in the 5% of the city set aside for tourists there is zero information available about anything (you’re just supposed to know).

Been there twice, not going back. I fail to understand why anyone would willing set foot in the place. Not sure intimidated is the right word for how I feel about it, but I can certainly understand people who feel that whatever crumbs of civilization might endure in the place are not worth the effort.

28

If there is something going on, if you know about it in advance, if you have a ticket/reservation, if there is parking, if you get there hours ahead of time so you’re not locked out when it fills up, if you bring 5x more money than you think you’ll need (and you’ll need it all)
it can be very interesting.

It’s only intimidating if the smell of pee nauseates you.

Its only scary if you can’t get inside that Starbucks before the two guys walking a 1/2 block behind you catch up to you.

Its only disappointing when you realize that you aren’t standing there and doing nothing to kill time before your “thing” starts. You’re “people watching”.
Or when you’ve paid each of the 50 extra “fees” to get ahead to better “spots” in line to get to the top of the ESB, gotten to the top, and realize you have to fight through 5 rows of people, packed in like a WTC PATH train at 5:30pm on a Friday, just to see the view.

Bonus Points if someone with you says, “Meh. Its just a building…” :smack:
(…granted the place that sells slices across the street has great pizza.)

29

Bad choice of words on my part, but what I’m getting at is that the built-up part of the other cities, meaning the part with regular blocks, and mostly multi-story buildings is relatively small- I think in Dallas, we’re talking maybe 4 miles by 3 miles. The rest is mostly single-story buildings, neighborhoods with houses and yards, and the usual suburban stuff.

NYC on the other hand, has miles and miles of that in any direction. I mean, it’s built-up from the tip of Manhattan to say… Yankee Stadium, and that’s something like 9 miles by 2 miles. That doesn’t even include the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn or anywhere else in the city itself, not to mention some of the nearby cities like Newark or Ft. Lee.

I think the proportion of “urban core” to everything else is a lot higher in NYC than almost anywhere else in the US, save maybe some of the other older/more built-up cities like Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

30

The only thing about NYC that really intimidated me was the subway system, but once I figured out how to make my phone tell me exactly how to navigate it, things were fine.

Without Google, I’d probably still be down there, trying to figure out which train goes where.

31

There’s plenty of interesting things to see in NYC, no matter what your interests.

I’ve never found it to be intimidating or scary. I came from a small town about 80 miles away and visited a lot when I was a kid. When I was 16, I spent an entire day walking around Manhattan from Penn Station to the UN building. I even visited Times Square at it’s most derelict. Never felt afraid, and I loved the life, the crowds, and even the smell of the city.

32

Bolding mine.

I’ve never been there, but this seems like a lot of willful blindness. So there’s no crime in NYC? It’s some Star Trek paradise? I understand that NYC isn’t the hell-hole of the 70s, where Escape From New York was almost a documentary, but really, no need to worry about “walk[ing] through Bedford-Sty alone” anymore, or Harlem, or Central park at night, or the Bronx in a Bo-Sox jersey? There are no unsafe spots at all? That would be nice, if it were true. Then they can disband the NYPD and use their salaries to make free ice cream stands on every corner.

<Yogi Berra> The streets in NYC are too crowded with cars, that’s why no one drives there.<YB>
Someone is driving. Lots of someones. If you take out the cabs, who are these people driving? They’re not all tourists.

33

Obviously that’s not the case.

Anecdotally, I did joke to my cousin (a resident in NYC for many years) while I was up there that that I hadn’t had the “real NYC tourist experience” because I hadn’t yet been mugged. He told me that I’d have to go pretty far outside the regular tourist spots if I wanted that to happen.

34

I spent one weekend in NYC and hated every minute of it. I can see why people think it’s scary and intimidating. I hate to paint the whole city with an overly broad brush, but my experience with people was not pleasant.

35

I am lily white and I lived in Harlem, Spanish Harlem, and Washington Heights over the course of the seven years I lived in NYC and I was never a victim of crime. There is crime in NYC, and you do witness some things you really wish you hadn’t (people vomiting in publc, people getting in fist fights on the train, etc.) but by and large NYC is incredibly safe.

As for the driving, beyond the standard cabs, buses, delivery cars/trucks/vans, emergency vehicles, and other assorted vehicles you would expect to find there are plenty of tourists, visitors, commuters, etc. to fill in that traffic. There are some people who live in the city and own vehicles, but it really doesn’t take a huge percentage of the population of 8-10 million people having cars to really clog up the roads with bumper to bumper traffic.

36

New York is one of my favorite places in the world. For a city of it’s size it is quite safe in most areas (of course specific location and time of day will make that vary). What I like most about it is it is almost like a sponge that soaks up all that is interesting about the world and puts it all in one place.

I’m not saying that it is the only place someone should visit but everyone should visit it at least once.

37

Have fun in Podunk. I understand the town baker got a new bread slicer. On Saturday night you can stand outside the window and watch it work.

38

I neither get the love nor the hate for New York. It’s dirty, smelly, cold and the locals are unfriendly. On the other hand, it’s a world city in a way that Chicago is not.

It certainly was a lot safer than most similar-sized cities in the US; I went for the first time in 2002 and I was expecting something like Highlander, but never felt even remotely threatened. Conversely, I have at times felt unsafe in London (where I spent many of my formative years) and Paris.

brovolone, it’s actually not that surprising that you felt unsafe in Orlando. This was briefly one of the most crime-ridden major cities in America. During grad school, I had to park in a neighborhood with a higher violent crime rate than 8 Mile.

39

Better there than NYC, where not only do they believe they invented sliced bread, but that no one else in the whole world has bread worth eating. And there are probably 5 places in Manhattan named (variations of) Original Mike’s Sliced Bread, all claiming to be the first, true, original sliced bread.

And they all smell like piss.

40

It may be so old as to be cliche, but E.B. White’s essay Here is New York does a fabulous job of making clear why one might love the city.