If you're tired of living in New York...you need to move out so someone can come in.

[lagilman]

Tried to go to the $6 morning movie -- realized halfway there I'd forgotten my wallet. Went back, grabbed wallet, did some shopping instead (new wine glasses! New wall sconce!) and then met up with marinarusalka and Her Boy for lunch at Kefi, which is as pleasant as advertised, and I need to get back there sometime for dinner. Then I came home and found wine waiting for me (ah, our international world -- Australian wine sent to the US via The Netherlands!) and word that my betas really liked my story revisions (I guess I didn't break it after all, mizkit, or I broke it Just Enough). And a July deadline has been extended to 1 October, and while there was some disappointing news, it was news I was expecting, and there was potential good news coming hard on its heels, so...

All in all, I'd call this day a win.


Meanwhile, also worked on my "agency from the viewpoint of the author" blog, so look for that sometimes this week, and started compiling a list of "How to Write a Real New Yorker" list, for the benefit of out-of-towners (where "New Yorker" = resident of NYC, not NYS) p[yes, this is being compiled tongue-in-cheek. That doesn't mean it's not true]


1. New Yorkers will step off the curb while they wait for the light to change. There are a number of reasons why we do this, but we all (okay 80%) do, and we will get annoyed if you stand there and yab after the light changes, blocking our way.

2. Not all New Yorkers Live in Manhattan. There are five boroughs, and all of them contain a multitude of neighborhoods. What part of what borough you live in is very important, and can identify you to others rather quickly. It takes a long time to get from one borough to another via mass transit
2a. Brooklyn is huge. Seriously.
2b. Staten Island is a borough. We just like to pretend it's not.
2c. Manhattan is an island. So is Staten Island. Queens and Brooklyn are (on) an island (that just happens to be the same island as Long Island, no relation to NYC. It gets confusing. See scarletina's comment.). Only the Bronx is part of the mainland.

3. Central Park is massive. Not everyone goes there -- it just seems that way on the first warm weekend of Spring, and all summer.
3a. There are many other parks in NYC, many of them quite beautiful.

4. Yes, New Yorkers walk fast. Get the hell out of our way.

5. The ethnic diversity in NYC is more than many rural/suburban Americans can even imagine. We like it that way. Especially when they bring a new cuisine to town.
5b. New Yorkers think nothing of grabbing something to eat from a grease truck -- which may have some of the best food in the neighborhood. (I spent an entire winter eating lunch every work-day from the local souvlaki truck). And every second corner in Manhattan has its own bagel cart, and the locals are loyal to it.

6. New Yorkers aren't ignoring you, they're being polite. If we make eye-contact, we've infiltrated your personal space. Looking away allows you privacy even when we're elbow-to-rib on the subway.

7. If you need immediate [non-crime-related] help, go to the nearest fire department, not the NYPD. Firefighters have less paperwork, and can get you help faster [plus, they often have paramedics]. But make sure it's important before you bother them.

8. If you need information, ask a doorman. Any kind of information. They know Everything.

9. Driving in NYC isn't scary, so long as you know the rules.
9a. Except in Queens, where it's terrifying.

... anyone else got something to add? Or start up a list for your own city/locale in your LJ, and link it back here!

Comments

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

...Queens and Brooklyn are an island...

Actually, they're not an island. They're on an island, an island separate from Manhattan.

Also, if you live anywhere on Long Island that is not Queens or Brooklyn, you do not live in New York City. People who live in New York City would laugh at you if you claimed otherwise.

The City means New York City. No other city is the city. There can be only one.

[lagilman]

Actually, they're not an island. They're on an island, an island separate from Manhattan.

Well, yes. That was what was meant by saying they were an island, as opposed to Manhattan being an island, and Staten Island being an island. I specifically left Long Island out of it. *grin* Will clarify for the nitpicky.

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

Isn't it also true that "The City" means "Manhattan" to a resident of Staten Island, or the outer reaches of Brooklyn or Queens? I've heard the term used that way quite a bit.

(Apropos of nothing, why Staten Island is not part of New Jersey will never fail to croggle me.)

[saraphina-marie.livejournal.com]

No other city is the city.

Except San Francisco.
No other cities are The City. Not LA, not Chicago. NYC and San Francisco. One for each coast. No more, no less.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

I would amend 9 with:

"9b. Also, midtown."

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Um, might I add the following"

Unless you're driving a cab, a bus, a limo, a truck, an ambulance, a construction vehicle of some kind, or a police car, STAY THE HELL OUT OF MIDTOWN WITH YOUR GODDAM CAR!!!!

That goes double for anything with NJ plates.

[rosefox]

You may say "I'm from New York" if you grew up in and/or have lived for at least ten* years in any of the five boroughs.

* Allowances may be made for the people who obviously should have been born here and were only born elsewhere through some grievous administrative error.

You may say "I live in New York" if you live in any of the five boroughs. If you live anywhere else in New York State, you should give the name of your town or city.

No matter where in New York State you live, every part of it north of you is "upstate" and every part of it south of you is not. However, only people who live two or more hours' drive from NYC may use the term "downstate".

If you are outside of NYC, "the city" refers to New York City. If you are inside of NYC, "the city" refers to Manhattan.

Most cities have a downtown that comprises the central business and shopping districts. NYC doesn't work this way. In Manhattan, "downtown" means south of (approximately) 34th Street, "uptown" means north of (approximately) 57th Street, and "midtown" is everything in the middle. Insofar as we have a downtown-like neighborhood in the sense that most other places use the term, it's midtown. "downtown" and "uptown" are also used as relative terms, e.g. "I have to go downtown to get some cupcakes from Magnolia and then be back uptown by 4 for my therapy appointment". Do not under any circumstances refer to "the downtown".

Neighborhoods have very strict boundaries. Know where they are or you will look like a fool. It's safest to think of New York neighborhoods as townships, which most of them used to be.

I believe NYC is the only city in the U.S. that contains five counties. Usually it's the other way around.

[lagilman]

If you are outside of NYC, "the city" refers to New York City. If you are inside of NYC, "the city" refers to Manhattan.

Oh yeah. I confuse the hell out of non-NYCers when I say I'm "going into the city" and they go "I thought you lived in the city?" like I was trying to pull one over on them....

This also goes for folk who live in certain towns in NJ, especially those who work in Manhattan.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

"downtown" and "uptown" are also used as relative terms, e.g. "I have to go downtown to get some cupcakes from Magnolia and then be back uptown by 4 for my therapy appointment"

Ha! I love it!

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

I love this list!!!

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

Respectfully submitted, as someone who spends enough time in NYC to feel like she lives there:

* There is no such thing as a "convenience store" in NYC. It's a "deli".

* Unless they are filthy rich, no resident of Manhattan in their right mind voluntarily owns a car. At least, not one they keep in the city.

* Residents of the outer boroughs may own cars. If they do, they spend a lot of time moving them to abide by alternate-side.

* Connecticut = "the country". Even inner-city Connecticut, as we noted to our amusement in college when our Stuyvesant-grad classmates referred to downtown Middletown as "living in the country".

* If you take a NYC resident out of the city, you will soon witness their shock and dismay as they realize that it's not possible to order delivery food at 2am.

[lagilman]

oh hell, Westchester is the country! (or The Hamptons or the Catskills, depending on where you live and what ethnicity you are). Connecticut is the Great Beige Wasteland (sorry guys).


Also, not every neighborhood has alternate side of the street parking. In my area, there are two 2-hour periods each week when you have to move your car -- otherwise you're set.

[oh. there should be an entry for alternate parking, yes/no?]

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Umm, not be a New Yorker or anything, but a convience store is a deli depending on your neighborhood. Most places it's a bodega, or sometimes a Korean store. Twenty-five years ago it was a Span-Am. Fifty years ago it was a corner store or sometimes a candy store.

I think Isaac Asimov grew up in a corner store.

[saladinahmed.livejournal.com]

Ah, rats, Butler, you beat me to it :P

FYI, in Detroit (where I grew up) they're called 'party stores,' and you can buy hard liquor there.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with #4 and #6 best. Get the hell outta my way!

[xraytheenforcer.livejournal.com]

The proper phrasing, as I demonstrated to a bunch of slack-jawed yokels clogging the narrow midtown sidewalk while I was trying to get errands done at lunch is "HEY DICKHEAD, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY." (To be fair, I did loudly and politely ask them to please move to one side three times before I unleashed terror among the tourists.)

[saladinahmed.livejournal.com]

Love this!

Also:

1)That "New Yawk" accent you hear in commercials for (ugh, shudder) Domino's "Brooklyn style" (!?) pizza? There's only about 50 people left who really sound like that. They don't spend a lot of time in Manhattan. The Bugs Bunny/Ben Grimm accent is mostly an artifact of the early-to-mid 20th c.

2)Contrary to the movies, your cabbie should not be a fat greasy white guy with said accent. He's about 500 times more likely to be from Bangladesh.

3)People who grew up in New York may have very little knowledge of boroughs other than their own.

And, just to be fair, a couple of items *for* New Yorkers:

1) "The City" is only Manhattan on the East Coast. If you are in Chicago, unless you are reminiscing or commiserating with other New Yorkers, saying 'the city' makes you sound like a bit of a tool. If you're in Oakland or Berkeley, 'the city' means San Francisco

2) 72nd street is NOT 'uptown.' Manhattan streets go into the 200s, even though many (mostly white) New Yorkers think it stops at 96th or 110th street.

[lagilman]

2) 72nd street is NOT 'uptown.' Manhattan streets go into the 200s, even though many (mostly white) New Yorkers think it stops at 96th or 110th street.

Amen. Getting some people *looks at the guilty parties* to meet me at some fabulous restaurants/clubs north of 125 is like asking them to move to Omaha. They freak and counter-suggest Chelsea.

[saladinahmed.livejournal.com]

Also, for tourists (and the clueless people who moved here b/c they wanted to live some Sex in the City dream) more than writers:

-The RIGHT-HAND side! Walk on the RIGHT-HAND side!! Is that really so hard to grasp!?

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

And for the sake of all the gods, don't walk three-abreast at a snail's pace. Or stop in the center of the top of the stairs coming up out of the subway trying to orient yourself. Move the hell over!!!

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

I love this! I've already made one comment in reply to Rose, but I think I may go back and make a few more here and there. (Except dinner's gonna be ready in about twenty minutes, so.)

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

1. New Yorkers will step off the curb while they wait for the light to change. There are a number of reasons why we do this, but we all (okay 80%) do, and we will get annoyed if you stand there and yab after the light changes, blocking our way.

We also walk diagonally across streets/avenues when there's no moving traffic to save time and avoid the crowds on the sidewalk. This can be especially notable on 8th Ave north of Port Authority, so Yes, Lady In SUV With Out Of State Plates, we're not nuts. We do this every day. Stop shaking your head at us, we know what we're doing.

[edit] Ohboy, I'd better make this my only addition or I could be here forever. ::grin::

6. New Yorkers aren't ignoring you, they're being polite. If we make eye-contact, we've infiltrated your personal space. Looking away allows you privacy even when we're elbow-to-rib on the subway.

This was something I NEVER EVER got used to when I lived in Germany. Eye contact is perfectly normal there. In fact, not just eye contact, but outright staring. All the time. Every U-Bahn ride. By the time I got wherever I was going, I'd be thisclose to causing an international incident. I started out trying to outstare people, but it didn't work! What to do in a culture where no one ever said "don't stare, it's rude"? AAAuuuuggghhhh!!!

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

I never got used to that when I was in Germany, either. And at that point I hadn't ever spent any time in NYC. I just figured they were staring at my shoes thinking "ugh, another stupid American". Then I'd greet them in their own language and really blow their minds. :)

[desuvan.livejournal.com]

You're making me homesick. (I went to college at NYU, and haven't been back to the city in eight years.)

And I spent a semester getting breakfast from a bagel truck.

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

Oh, another one:

Native New Yorkers are more likely than not to not have a drivers' license, and to never have been behind the wheel of an automobile.

[lagilman]

er, no. Lots of "native" New Yorkers have their drivers' license, as do people who moved there after college. Especially those who live in Queens or the Bronx, or Staten Island (where there is relatively limited mass transit). They just don't own a car/drive often.

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

Great discussion. This has gone straight to the top of my research links for something set partially in Manhattan. Haven't yet got the nerve to write about NYC natives, but my characters move through quite often. It's such a varied, iconic locale, how can anyone writing in the US not use it from time to time? Thanks to everybody on this one!

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

I'll wager that, in England, "The City" means the business section of London, and not NYC. ;-)

[lagilman]

Different countries, different slang. Someone in the UK can start their own list, as per my original comment. On the East Coast, the City is NYC (not Boston, not Philly, and certainly not DC or Miami....).

I leave the Left Coast to haggle it out for themselves but have to agree -- San Francisco probably takes the title. LA is...well, LA.

Cars and Cabs

[lagilman]

The truth is, a lot of people in NYC have cars. In the outer boroughs a lot of buildings (including mine) have their own parking garages for an additional fee, and you see lovely cars parked on the streets as well as junkers. But it's expensive, and unless you have a really good reason to keep it (hauling kids, travel, reverse commuting, etc) you don't keep it long-term.

Cabs, on the other hand... I'm curious to see who among the NYC denizens uses a cab on a regular basis, and who doesn't, and what your decision point is.

The last time I used a cab I was traveling with my folks, and we were hauling Mei-Chan home for the first time from her breeder. That was over a year ago. May guidelines are a) it has to be a long distance not covered by mass transit and b) there needs to be either horrible weather, I'm lugging bags, or I'm wearing dress-up shoes not suitable for walking more than five blocks (1/4 mile).

Re: Cars and Cabs

[xraytheenforcer.livejournal.com]

I very rarely use cabs/car services. It has to be bad weather, or late at night, or (this was back when my body still let me drink devil ethanol) if I had had a few, and it has to be very inconvenient/overly time consuming to get from Point A to Point B with public transpo.

[6-penny.livejournal.com]

I found a letter my mother wrote describing her new stepfather as "someone who squeezed a dollar until the eagle squeaked and who hadn't been to the city (he was from Brooklyn) since McKinley was president!-This was written in the 1940's

[delkytlar.livejournal.com]

My rule: Being a New Yorker is not about where you live, but is a cellular process, governed by the environment of your childhood (where you were born; what you ate and drank as a child; and where and what games you played as a child). If you were not born and raised within the confines of the five boroughs, you are not now, and can never truthfully call yourself, a New Yorker.

[lagilman]

Otherwise known as "The Maine Defense." If your parents were born Away, you'll never be from around here.

I'm not much impressed with it in a metropolitan area, myself. Especially one with a large population of first-generation immigrants proud to call themselves -- rightfully, IMO -- New Yorkers, adding huge amounts to what makes the city special.

[delkytlar.livejournal.com]

Another driving one: A New Yorker will double-park, even if there are perfectly good parking spaces nearby. We will even double park and block the perfectly good space you want to use. You have the right to object, and we have the right to ignore you.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

This really annoys me when the French do it in Lille. I'm sorry to know that is innate to city living. ;-)