Every American urban hub has its own charismatic distinctions and attractions, but New York is a beast of it’s own – the people, the places, the street falafel at 3:00 a.m. Whether you’ve spent a few months or a few decades in the boroughs, the outside world can come as quite a shock once you’ve crossed to the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel. Regardless of how you leave or where you go, New York has changed both you and the other eight million people who have shared your subway bench. Yet, it isn’t until you’ve waved goodbye to the bright lights and the two old men arguing loudly in the thick, Brooklyn accents about deli meat by Phebe’s in the East Village that you fully realize the life you’ve been living. And oh, what a life you’ve been living.
Upon arrival in a metropolis, you remember that strangers have the capacity to be nice.
They smile! They ask you how you are! They listen to your answer! They have follow up questions! The last stranger who smiled at you in New York was the Starbucks cashier at Broadway and Bond, and you had half the mind to call the local mental hospital to commit the poor girl who was clearly slipped some MDMA in her morning coffee. That was until you realized you forgot to takeoff your facemask before picking up your order.
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The Concrete Jungle is full of crowded streets of businessmen busier than you, brushing by millions of minds with their own agendas. New York gives you the thick skin to deal with delays, pushy people, and lost service on the train right as you were about to DM your roommates a video of a sleeping baby panda. But because a number of other cities have a friendlier demeanor and elevated public transit lines with excellent cell service in order to not inconvenience its passengers that enjoy scrolling through Instagram or sending their distant family members Farmville invites on Facebook during their commute, New Yorkers must reteach themselves how to be tolerable humans in order to blend their black coffee with the milk and sugar of the rest of Dunkin’s America.
You find out that in this new city, you can get a sandwich, a drink, and a side – all under $10 – and you low-key believe that watching Now You See Me 2 on the plane turned you into a magician with the power to get better discounts than your Aunt Sheri’s infamous coupon book.
It becomes clear to you that you could feed yourself three quality meals a day in this new city without worrying that you might get evicted from your apartment. You can finally afford to treat yoself with guac at Chipotle. And get chips and queso that weren’t left on the table from the previous guests without needing to sell your soul to the franchise. Your sustenance-savvy self is taking a vacation and coming back a richer and heavier human.
You walk into your non-New Yorker friends’ apartments to find that they reside in palaces with closets that might as well be the size of your entire building. And you paid the homeless man on Fulton and Nassau in Panera Bread baguettes to keep watch over your winter coats since your closet is your apartment.
Of course, these friends owe half of what you do in rent and have live-in washer/dryers. What a dream.
You wonder how on earth anyone survives without a bodega on the first floor of his or her building.
It seems near criminal that you would have to walk more than a block to get Ben & Jerry’s when the old woman on the subway is wearing the same shade of sky blue that your ex was wearing when he had the nerve to flirt with Lisa Carter in front of you at BBar in April 2011. And what about when you desperately need paper towels because your experiment of substituting shampoo for dishwashing detergent was not as successful as hypothesized? Or when you realize you’re out of beer while running late for your co-worker’s boyfriend’s cousin’s divorce-anniversary bash?
Bodegas are the sole reason why the earth has yet to end.
Although, it must be nice to be at store where you don’t have to strategically plan your purchases in order to meet, but not exceed, the credit card minimum. Because Lord knows you’re hitting that max out on your card any day now.
You’re convinced that other cities declined to follow a grid system for the sole purpose of making you look like a lost puppy.
How are you supposed to know which way is North without ascending street numbers in the distance? Does everyone carry a compass around everywhere? Where does one find a compass? Is there a designated compass shop? Can the directionally challenged take an online class before their visit? Do they teach you how to use said compass in said class?
Your disorientation and confusion from inexperience makes you feel a bit guilty for treating the tourists in New York as human obstacles on your way to work.
But not quite as guilty when you realize that you’re far more equipped for American Ninja Warrior than the rest of the country.
Except who can really blame you for using your perfected dodging techniques in New York when most of these other cities are especially spacious in comparison?
Other urban hubs have sizable distance between buildings, and more than 1.5 people or two stray cats can fit in the widths of their sidewalks. So much room for activities.
You’re amazed by the simplicity of the mass transportation systems in other modern metropolises.
It’s as if assigning one color for each line is much too user friendly for the New Yorker – you need numbers and letters and unannounced schedule changes that will cause you to miss your train out of Grand Central on the day of your nephew’s christening. The New York subway is the desktop PC in your basement that refuses to die despite its five million viruses and somehow still uses dial-up even though you ended that service twenty years ago.
It's hard for you to believe that no one in this new city has had a likened experience getting on the N or the Q instead of the R, only realizing their mistake when they’re halfway across the bridge to Brooklyn. You’ve done this so many times that you’ve learned to pack snacks and a pillow for neck support before you leave so you don’t have to suffer through the hour-long detour sore and on an empty stomach.
However, you feel #blessed for 24-hour access to New York transportation.
You can’t imagine what on earth you would do without the subway on those nights when it’s 4:00 a.m., and all you have is $4.73 for a taxi because you bought the whole bar shots and two extra large pizzas for yourself.
And at the end of the trip, you’re exceedingly grateful to have such a beautifully flawed city to come home to.
While at times New York may make you jaded, impatient, and intolerant of the outsider, it’s a brew of passion and frenzy that invites you to live unapologetically as yourself – every cell, every limb, every step or skip or leap of faith. The expense you pay to breathe the City’s air is an investment worth suffering through – for what you put into New York, she returns ten-fold and then some. America is filled with dozens of beautiful cities with charms and quirks of their own, but a New Yorker’s heart will always lie in the depths of her city’s streets, fending off rats and the smell of sewage with an unconditional love for the City that Never Sleeps.
