# What's so great about New York, anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080 "2005-06-20T17:32:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/21 "2005-06-21T07:39:42Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I have my choice of four professional baseball teams, and I can openly declare that American football is the stupidest, most irritating game ever devised without fear of ostracization. Blasphemer! Which four teams? ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/22 "2005-06-21T12:01:03Z")
Thanks, **friedo**. That’s an answer with some substance. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/23 "2005-06-21T12:04:03Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#): > > Blasphemer! > > Which four teams? I’m assuming he’s counting minor league teams. Although, I submit that the Mets are professional organization only in the most technical sense of the word. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/24 "2005-06-21T13:04:07Z")
> [@Ellis Dee](#): > > Blasphemer! > > Which four teams? The Yankees, the Mets, the Cyclones and the other Yankees. The last two are minor league teams but they’re both better than the Mets. ---
**Author:** ![Aangelica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Aangelica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aangelica)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/25 "2005-06-21T14:46:49Z")
Until I moved out to Long Island to live with my fiance I can tell you what I loved about NYC. I loved that the grocery stores near my apartment in Astoria sold (literally) a combined 249 varieties of olive. I loved that you can get a bagel sandwich that is to die for on any corner for less than three bucks any morning of any day. I loved that I could get around the city without ever having to get in a car. Let alone a car I had to actually drive _shudder_. I lived in various large West Coast cities and believe me when I tell you that the public transit system doesn’t even COMPARE. I love that the arcitecture is fabulous. It’s fantastic, gorgeous, and interesting. Not all large buildings are giant steel rectangles with the soul of an unwashed gym sock. I love that people are not all the same - and in New York they’re more likely to revel in the differences than cover them up. I love that the PC movement has been kept to acceptable minimums for the most part. People will respect other people’s traditions - but it’s more likely because the other people insisit loudly upon it than because we’re all afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. I love that the city is arrogant, friendly and unapologetic. I love that yesterday on the subway I saw a man sitting with a fully-dressed haute couture mannequin, a small dog in a shopping bag and a long suffering expression on his face. The mannequin had her own seat. I love that there are fifty difference choices of cuisine (not restaurant) available for delivery for lunch to my office - most for under 15 bucks. I love the bagels. They really _are_ better here. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/26 "2005-06-21T14:54:22Z")
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s Down…The people ride in a hole in the ground… ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/27 "2005-06-21T18:04:03Z")
Ahh, all these well adjusted Dopers, talking about bagels and delis and the Met! There is something more important. NYC is a refuge for the rest of the nation’s outcasts. If you are gay, or a single mother, or in an interracial relationship, or of a different religion (or no religion), or are just plain unlike your neighbors in some apparent way, life can be inconvenient to downright deadly in another part of the country. Come to NYC and behave yourself and your life will probably be fine. We don’t care about any of that stuff. That, to me, is ultimately NYC’s greatest blessing. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/28 "2005-06-21T18:07:44Z")
**Stuyguy** wins some points here not just for the pertinence of his comments, but for having an NY-themed username! ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/29 "2005-06-21T19:28:35Z")
> [@Sal Ammoniac](#): > > **Stuyguy** wins some points here not just for the pertinence of his comments, but for having an NY-themed username! A common misconception. In fact, **stuyguy** was raised amongst pigs on a farm in Smoot, Wyoming. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/30 "2005-06-21T19:56:25Z")
I’m one of those people who needs to live either directly on top of somebody else, with something going on at all times, or out in the middle of nowhere, where I can play my music as loud as I want, grow vegetables, and have a still. Currently, I’m in downtown Cincinnati, which has got all the annoyances of the former with all the cultural isolation of the latter. Anyway, other cities have good bands, good food, and a decent amount of things happening 24 hours a day. But no place I’ve ever been has _all_ of them, with such a bewildering variety of choices. In NYC, there’s absolutely no excuse for sitting at home and watching TV on a Saturday night (or hell, a Tuesday), unless that’s really what you want to do. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/31 "2005-06-21T21:17:17Z")
I lived in NYC for 25 years, and I don’t have time to list all the things I dearly miss, many of which have already been mentioned. But New York, more than any other city I’ve been in, is a city of “slashes.” Everyone seems to be a waiter-slash-actor or a bartender-slash-writer or a cashier-slash-artist or a student-slash-model\*. It’s the place young, ambitious people come to, to live out their dreams and jump into the deep end of life without looking back. It’s the place where dreams really do come true, and life’s a blast even when they don’t. \*No Marla Hansen jokes, please. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/32 "2005-06-22T00:59:58Z")
The great thing about New York is that all the New Yorkers live there so the rest of the country doesn’t have to deal with them too often. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/33 "2005-06-22T02:06:34Z")
> [@Sal Ammoniac](#): > > > [@Beware of Doug](#): > > > > What’s great about New York is that it somehow manages to be bigger than everything in it put together. The whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. > > But what does that mean, exactly? I mean, for you individually. Well. What it might mean for me is going to be very different from what it might mean for you or anyone else, but for me…New York is about infinite possibility, never just about what you can see or do or buy, but about what _could_ be, what _might_ be. It’s the place where there’s always something waiting around the next corner, the place of infinite second chances. Part of this is because it’s impersonal and anonymous. But – I should say _and_, for New York is filled with coexisting contradictions – part of it is because whatever you do and whoever you are, there are people like you, people who Get It. [sub]I still can’t get used to the accents, though. And I’ve been here 16 years.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/34 "2005-06-22T02:28:28Z")
> [@stuyguy](#): > > There is something more important. NYC is a refuge for the rest of the nation’s outcasts. If you are gay, or a single mother, or in an interracial relationship, or of a different religion (or no religion), or are just plain unlike your neighbors in some apparent way, life can be inconvenient to downright deadly in another part of the country. Come to NYC and behave yourself and your life will probably be fine. We don’t care about any of that stuff. That, to me, is ultimately NYC’s greatest blessing. You know I tried to figure out how to say this exactly. I didn’t fit in Oklahoma. I can’t quite put my finger on why I didn’t but I knew it and everybody else did too. But here, it is OK. ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/35 "2005-06-22T02:43:11Z")
There’s just something about New York. My parents came for Christmas this year. These are world travellers, having lived in Europe, Dad being Air Force and travelled the world. We took them up to NY for the day. The city struck my mom as being the best place she had ever been - and we didn’t even really do much of anything. The city vibrates. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/36 "2005-06-22T03:14:19Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Oh, and you can visit the real life Soup Nazi, if he’s still there - it’s been awhile. The soup is excellent. He’s really an asshole. Yes, but… I moved away from NYC long before chef Al Yeganeh was made famous by “Seinfeld,” so I’ve never gotten to eat at his place. But I know exactly where it is, and I know loads of people who eat there regularly. Now, it’s noteworthy that NOBODY I know has tried to tell me “Oh, Al’s a sweetheart, if you just get to know him.” NOBODY has tried to tell me he’s a wonderful man who’s been unfairly maligned. But almost all of these people have told me (essentially), “Look, he’s surly and curt with everybody. If you think you’re going to be the one to melt his heart and become his pal, forget it. But when he really unloads on somebody or gives somebody a real hard time, you can bet the jerk deserves it. It’s a VERY busy place, and he’s got hundreds of customers to deal with at lunch time. He only has three simple rules: know what you want, cash only, and have your money ready. Those are pretty easy rules to understand. So, if some idiot gets to the head of the line after a 15 minute wait, and still doesn’t know what he wants, or tries to write a check or whip out a credit card, NOBODY feels too sorry for that clown if the Soup Nazi rips him a new asshole. Because people like that are wasting MY time, as well as Al’s.” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/37 "2005-06-22T03:37:38Z")
Four rules; you’re supposed to move over to the left after you order. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/38 "2005-06-22T04:04:46Z")
Because people who live in other “cities” really do seem like they are just kidding themselves. New York is one of the few cities where you really don’t need to have a car. There’s a lot to be said for being able to walk out of your appartment, grab a coffee, shop, hang out in the park, and kick a homeless guy in the nuts all within a few blocks. There’s also something about the nightlife in NYC that is very different from most other places. Most places there are a few “hot spots” where all the trendy bars and restarants are clustered. Everyone drives in from miles around and at 2am the bars all empty a bunch of drunks onto the street all at once. New York, everything is going on all the time all through the city. Also, I love the way Times Square is filled with TGIFridays and Olive Garden and Red Lobster like restaraunts to catch all the idiot tourists too stupid to read a Zagats guide to find real restaurants that are less expensive and better quality a few blocks away. ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/39 "2005-06-22T17:28:39Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Also, I love the way Times Square is filled with TGIFridays and Olive Garden and Red Lobster like restaraunts to catch all the idiot tourists too stupid to read a Zagats guide to find real restaurants that are less expensive and better quality a few blocks away. And I love NYC because it keeps **msmith537** the hell out of funfax. ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2005, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080/40 "2005-06-22T18:27:22Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Also, I love the way Times Square is filled with TGIFridays and Olive Garden and Red Lobster like restaraunts to catch all the idiot tourists too stupid to read a Zagats guide to find real restaurants that are less expensive and better quality a few blocks away. I don’t look down on people who want to eat somewhere familiar to them. To a lot of people, the city and the Square itself are such an asssault on the senses that they need something familiar, ‘safe’. However, I’m not going to go to the city with a universe of choice in restaurants and go to Chevy’s or Red Lobster. Personal choice, opinion. Clearly, you’ve given yours, now let everyone else have theirs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-so-great-about-new-york-anyway/309080.md?page=3)