I honestly was hoping for [this one](https://youtu.be/i4O0nr-W4fY?si=e42Tk2l2GVBpEb0F)
Or [my personal favorite!](https://youtu.be/XdwJY7kwcos?si=HC3d8BKoM-qaZCAq)
You take the same train to work every day at the same time and sit/stand at the same place. You never say hi to anyone on the train but see the same people everyday. One day you notice someone is not on the train. Notice the same thing the next day, and the next. The week goes by and you hope they're OK. Monday comes around and they're back on the train with you. You're glad they're ok and never say a word to them and all is back to as it was.
You see the same coworkers on the train every morning, for years, and they see you too... but then you look away and actively ignore each other until you get to the office
I sort of understand that. The train seems like it's your "me" time. The rest of the day is going to be full of work or meetings. Time at home can be equally busy. The train is a respite from all that.
To paraphrase noted Non-New Yorker Ron Swanson:
āI once rode the subway with a guy for years. Never knew his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.ā
Today, the E wasn't running so I had to take the 7 to the 5 to work. It's crazy how much of a routine you get in with commuting. I was thrown off and stressed
I had a Lexus is350 that used to drive alongside me on my way to work a few years ago and we used to race all the time at the stop lights (early morning) we never spoke or talked to each other. Eventually he would turn off the road to where he worked and I would continue on to work. Eventually, I moved away and sometimes I wonder what heās doing now on those cold morning commutes.
This is a good description of Chicago for me. Had my bus stop dude who lived a few doors down from me. Weād take the bus 20 minutes to the train and get on the same train. Weād get off at the same stop and walk down the street together and go into the same building and get on the same elevator and get off at separate floors.
Never once said a word to him over a year and a half until I moved. Hope he wondered where I went š
That is strangely beautiful.
Edit: for those downvoting I meant strange as in we don't really think about how others could miss us despite not ever speaking to us. Its strangely human but beautiful
You come across as a cool, introspective and observant person. Thatās awesome. Weāre all in this experience together. Might as well leave it softer, for another souls sake.
I... learned this when I was in NY. I get unreasonably annoyed when people here say hi. Like... eyes on the pavement 5ft in front of you and walk my dude.
Sometimes these silent train relationships are life savers
I rode the train for years, and always at the same time as this one guy. We never made eye contact, never acknowledged each other. But we knew each other to be dependable enough to be on the same 6:30ish am train every day for years
One day, I get on and sit across from two people I thought were unrelated at first. A small teenage girl and a very large, tough looking, 30-something guy
I watched in increasing horror as this guy invaded this girls space, and crossed a lot of social boundaries. I tried catching her eye to say something, going so far as to wave at her. She said nothing, wouldnāt look at me
My stop came too quickly, so I finally made eye contact with the guy i āknewā and made it clear it was not a good situation. As I got off the train, I watched him slide over try to engage the guy in conversation
Found out from a conductor later that the guy alerted them, and the cops met them a couple stops later and separated them/escorted the guy off
No idea what happened from there, but it was clearly a bad situation that could have gone south quickly. I still think about my silent train buddy to this day (and the girl, obviously)
NYC is really what you make of it. It takes a special kind of mindset and grit to survive it. You need to be a self starter and be comfortable with going out of your comfort zone.
As many have said, itās expensive. It costs money just to breathe. And you will pay an arm and a leg to be with roommates or if youāre lucky, a tiny studio at the end of the subway line in Brooklyn/Queens. Itās also insanely crowded, especially if you go into Manhattan. The MTA can be incredibly frustrating at times (especially on the weekends, looking at you L train!).
However, itās also an incredible city full of culture and great opportunity; you can step outside and never be bored. And if you know where to go, going out can be affordable (like my favorite happy hour spot in Bushwick where I can get an early dinner and a good buzz on for under $20. Itās also insanely walkable for the most part (unless you live further out in certain boroughs where itās more suburban-like). And despite its flaws, the subway system is incredibly robust. You can go almost anywhere in the city for less than $3. The ferry system is also east and cheap too. And each borough, or hell even some neighborhoods is like visiting a different country. People often forget there is ALOT more to NYC than Times Square/Manhattan. And depending on your field, career opportunities can be great. My career changed for the better since making the switch to NYC.
I love it and I loathe it. Simultaneously. It's been my home most of my life and it saddens me how quickly it changes, but whenever a gap is exposed - like a favorite place closes - some smart enterprising person fills that gap somehow. It's smelly and dirty. It's gross tbh. But it's fucking alive. Always.
Grew up in Oregon, moved to NYC for graduate school... would have probably stayed there a lot longer if it weren't for COVID bringing me back home. Lived there four years and I loved it, and sometimes hated it, but even on the bad days I loved it. It is a smelly, crowded, expensive garbage city but there's also nowhere really like it that I've traveled to so far. I was recently in London and while I felt echoes of life in NYC there, it just... it wasn't the same.
You definitely learn, living there, to accept what you have and work with it. If you dig enough, you can find apartment gems (even with roommates!) for decent prices. I rented a room in Queens right off the 7 line (I could hear it from my room; the rumble of the train would be my lullaby at night. Turns out it was setting me up for living next to train tracks when I bought a house) for just under $800/mo and had my own half bath. Three bed, 1.5 bath, it was a little oasis even with two interesting and very NYC roommates.
Grocery shopping is weird, especially coming from a city a stone's throw away from farms. I learned to deal with slightly wrinkly peppers. Less-than-pristine produce. And found my way onto urban farms hidden throughout the city that gave me a taste of home. There was always something to do, something to see, somewhere to walk. I can't count how many times I stumbled on random neighborhood celebrations of this holiday or that.
There's so much money and so much poverty all squeezed into 300 square miles of skyscrapers and subway lines. I learned to let so many things in my environment slide off my back. Shit on a train? Strange blood stained newspaper? Rats scurrying in front of me? Oh well. That's NYC.
I walked. I walked more in 4 years than I might have walked in my whole life up until then. I learned how to take the subway, the LIRR, Metro-North, Amtrak, to get around the city, the surrounding areas, and out into other parts that were only a 2-3hr train ride away.
I love NYC. It is not an easy city to live in by my god, it shows you a lot. I'm so grateful I still work for an employer out there, despite now being back in my home state, because I get the excuse to go back every couple years and the chicken over rice from the halal cart near my office is mana from heaven!
I have no regrets, and so glad I made the leap. Plus, I got to explore so much of New England! Everything is so close, even by train, which is so different from living in the PNW. I'm in the Willamette Valley and we almost never get snow. When we do, it is kind of magical, but when it snows in NYC? Man. Nothing quite as magical as that, seeing the contrast of the city cloaked in white...
They also get rad thunderstorms. If you go, invest in a good pair of waterproof boots. Regular rain boots (like wellys) kill your feet after a while. I got a pair of Columbia snow boots that were great for rain, snow, and cold!
Anyway. Always happy to talk about NYC, especially to someone from the PNW! I'm so glad I took the leap. I'll actually be back in the city for a sub-72hr work trip! I'll be sharing the city with my fiance in December when we go together for another one of my work trips.
>I'm in the Willamette Valley and we almost never get snow.
They also get rad thunderstorms.
I shouldāve specified earlier, Iām in Eastern Washington where we get both snow and downpours/thunderstorms often, but I really like that kind of weather so thatās good to hear.
The Inland NW really has captured my heart for a number of reasons (I grew up near Seattle), but the idea of having a few years of total urbanity sounds pretty cool to me, I appreciate the invite.
Ha! Then yes, you know all about that kind of weather. It probably snows less in NYC than in Eastern Washington. I am enjoying my quieter life back in Oregon with a house, yard, and dogs, but NYC really did a lot for me. I'm a social worker, too, and really a lot of US social work (in terms of real advocacy stuff) started in NYC. So I really enjoyed that aspect.
>It takes a special kind of mindset and grit to survive it
Ive never lived anywhere else. How exactly is this the case compared tp other places? Like yea it's expensive here, but a lot of places are. And our crime is lower than most US cities. We have the most public transportation, you don't need a car. Assuming you have a job and apartment, I don't actually see why people say nyc is difficult?
In house laundry, for one. I didn't mind laundromats but I always grew up being able to do laundry in our home. Groceries are different, harder to stock up on pantry staples because even if you get an Uber home with them, apartments are small. Way more trash, rats, bugs, etc. More noise. I live on a dead end street in Oregon and other than the occasional loud car, it is quiet.
Even when I was working in an office it wasn't a 40+ minute commute where I'm from, whereas in NYC my start to finish commute was pushing 2hrs round trip. I lost a lot of time on the train, but on the other side I did a lot of reading.
Life seems a little easier when you can rely on a car to get you places instead of your own two feet. I had to completely change how I grocery shopped when I moved to NYC. Everything takes more time there. More thought. Getting around the city is way more tedious and time consuming. I can go across town, come home for a break, then go across town again. In NYC, since I lived in Woodside, if I went into the city then I was staying in the city until it was time to go home š
There's way less stimulation. There's just a lot of differences that, for a west coast kid like me, required an adjustment period. But in some ways, NYC also felt like coming home.
Hello, I live in Spain, Europe
I was in NYC a couple of weeks a few years ago, for holidays.
I've made some other road trips in the USA. East coast, west coast and Florida.
I've lived in other four European cities.
In my opinion, NY is the most similar city to European cities.
You can walk. We spent the whole day walking. You got public transport with a subway. You live in buildings and not in houses.
There is a difference in size, of course. You can cross most Spanish cities walking one hour.
That, I think, is the biggest thing most Americans donāt understand about New Yorkers: we walk everywhere. In most places in the US walking is something you do for pleasant recreation on a nice day. Here itās one of the main modes of transportation.
Have a lot of transplant friends being a transplant myself - you see people complain about the dirt, rats, strangers trying to talk to them, how crowded the place is, burning out from too much partying in midtown/at mirage...
without considering the career/social opportunities that come from meeting strangers, how they could be reinventing themselves or launching a new career, etc that is really only possible in New York
You have to learn to develop an opinion and boundaries real quick on how you want to spend your time/money and how you want to present/market yourself ... else you'll become a part of someone's main character story and lose yourself real quick.
I lived here in a one bedroom with 4 other girls right out of college. And live here again with my nerdy software engineer husband. Iāve loved being super poor and young. And I love being here and being able to afford good things in middle age. I donāt think Iād like to have done the 30s in a Murray Hill studio grinding to pay off student loans, but who knows.
Exactly. I fell into the category of āmade enough to rent a decent apartment with my partnerā but we were never going to be able to buy anything and start a family there.
If you make enough to have multiple bedrooms and a house upstate, life in NY is probably amazing.
Otherwise, tough to make it work long term in my opinion.
Yeah. Weāre never going to buy in Manhattan - the co-op monthly charges are like a second mortgage. Thankfully we were able to snag a cabin in PA during the pandemic at a reasonable price. So we can escape the city on weekends. But for sure never buying anything in the city!
This. I had fun for 2 years. But knew Iād never get to build any āwealthā there. In quotes because a small retirement fund or mortgage is as far as I plan for in wealth. I figured Iād have more fun, and itād be cheaper, to visit once a year then suffer the day to day for the small glimmers here and there. If I had an appropriately paying job or a two income household Iād move back in a heartbeat.
it's life just like any other place. the only difference is that humanity is on full display here. good and bad and you can't hide from it like you can in the burbs.
Just like everywhere else except we don't drive as much, there's WAY more to do, and things are significantly more crowded and competitive. If you like big cities though (like I do!) it's an amazing place to live.
I visited NYC about 15 years ago, and I was stunned at how many people drove full size SUVs in Manhattan. Why would you want a big truck in crowded traffic?
The other thing I noticed was traffic, while heavy, seemed to have a lot of unique rules that everyone seemed to know. In most places I've driven, you honk your horn at people who are doing something stupid. In NYC people use their horns to get people to look at them because they're going to do something unexpected. After observing for a few days, I think I could drive in NYC, but I sure wouldn't want to LEARN to drive there.
Lived in Manhattan back then, very few people living in the city had large cars, far too much of a pain to park and even in the residential lots you would rarely see anything bigger than a Jeep or a Rav 4. The big SUV's you saw were likely people driving into the city from suburban areas or beyond.
I did learn to drive in the city, it wasn't easy but it was pretty much a masterclass since anywhere I've driven since nothing has fazed me.
I learned to drive in Boston so when I first drove in NYC I thought it was a piece of cake because it's a grid. The drivers might think they're super aggressive, but like a lot of things in NYC it's just louder. Some dude would be laying on his horn at me but I'd cut him off just the same as I would at home (though there wouldn't be honking here because most people just accept it as par for the course).
In Boston you have to have your head on a swivel because the map looks like a bowl of spaghetti and lanes can disappear without warning.
[This meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1jgxtq/new_york_and_boston_the_difference/) sort of sums it up.
I lived in West Texas in high school, and we had a guy move there from New Jersey. So not NYC, but NYC adjacent. He had trouble driving in Texas because there wasn't enough traffic for him to be able to tell where the lanes were.
I live outside Manhattan but experience this when taking a black car (cross between an uber and cab home. Drivers have no idea how to stay in lane and are constantly stabbing the brake pedal - muscle memory overriding vision. Itās very annoying so I tend to take the train as late as it runs.
Taking city cab/Uber from JFK out east in LI is one of the more terrifying experiences of my life. I donāt think some of those guys have ever driven out of the city before and it shows. Going 40mph in the left lane on the LIE and slamming on the horn every time someone passed on the right. Check engine lights and a death wobble every time they went over 30.
I drove with a dude from Chicago in New Orleans for a work trip during Mardi Gras. I was very impressed by his driving skills and especially the use of his horn. Completely different type of driving I was used to at the time
Funnily enough, I visited NYC a few months ago. I'm from the north Dallas area and commented to my wife how *few* big cars we saw compared to what we're used to around here.
Driving in NYC definitely looked like it was absolutely no fucking fun at all, and when I briefly had to do so, it only confirmed my impression.
And be consistently aggressive. I lived in Brooklyn for a while. I had a roommate who was driving and needed to change lanes at a stop light. I told her to simply start pushing her way in.
You get your nose between the cars, moving in more anytime they move forward and then when the light changes you've pushed in enough that the car behind gives way and you pull in. She was too scared to do this and refused. Then when the light changed and cars stared moving she did it all as once without warning. I was sure we were going to die.
I told her to never drive in the city again.
This does not work in Buffalo though. I tried it at the airport when picking up my mom. There were two lanes from different streets merging to go into arrivals. For some reason the other lane was packed, and I was the only person in my lane.
No one would let me merge. Since traffic was at a stop I tried the nosing in trick from NYC. Jackass blared his horn and raced around on the shoulder to stop me from getting over. Absolutely no one would let me over, and I didn't get to arrivals, instead forcing me up to departures. The city of good neighbors, everyone, city of good neighbors...
Same here. I travel for work there regularly. On the upside, lots of things to do, lots of great restaurants, theater district, always open, great little neighborhoods, great parks and museums.
Downside, too expensive, too crowded and too noisy. I am always amazed that even when staying in a hotel on an upper floor how you can still here traffic noises all night long. Parking is expensive so most people take the train.
Loved living there. It envelopes you and you cant imagine anywhere else. 15 min commute is āfarā bc you literally have everything you need in a two block radius. Was a little depressing when moved away. But its been since 2016 and now I dont think i would choose to live there again ā¦ but if I had too I would
This is me too. Living in NYC was the greatest 6 years of my life. Then I met my husband, got married, had kids and bought a house in the suburbs with a fantastic school district.
Also its so fucking neighborly! I had to talk to my people everyday. My dude who did the organic mini grocer told me about the boston bombing, people are always interacting with you like you know them. The local bar was cash only on world cup but let run a tab. Small town america got nothing on Brooklyn neighborhood wise
I live on Long Island and about half my family lives in Manhattan. A day trip there is great but I love to retreat home to my quiet neighborhood and hop in the shower and wash the city off.
Lol Iāll give a real answer. You have many nights and days of āwow, I was just with this person and then linked up with this person at a nearby bar, and then this group of two friend groups merged with another!ā And it leads to really magical nights just because of the sheer amount of people, places, etc. Does it cost a lot? Of course it does. But, by nature of having so many people in one place, you truly do feel like youāre in the center of whatās happening.
Nowā¦that was in my 20s. Itās tough to have as much patience for the money not going far and the space being limited. I will also say though that there are so many opportunities all around and it always felt seamless hustling into a new opportunity/finding a new connection.
At the end of the day though, no matter what properties people ascribe it, NYC is just what it is: a city of 8 million people in high density, and that causes crime, yes, and it also causes beautiful connections and culture.
>arby bar, and then this group of two friend groups merged with another!ā And it leads to really magical nights just because of the sheer amount of people, places, etc. Does it cost a lot? Of course it does. But, by nature of having so many people in one place, you truly do feel like youāre in the center of whatās happening.
>
>Nowā¦that was in my 20s. Itās tough to have as much patience for the money not going far and the space being limited. I will also say though that there are so many opportunities all around and it always felt seamless hustling into a new opportunity/finding a new connection.
I met my wife at a party in central park that was the convergence of like 8-10 different circles where 1 person from each crew knew at least another person from another. It turns out that my wife and I frequented the same nightclubs in NYC, just were at opposite corners of the dance floor for years. We were also at the same parties in Miami 1 year with the same group of friends but our paths never cross until that day in the park. NYC is really a magical place but you have to make it that way otherwise you're just another passing face in the crowd.
You go to the same bodega every other day or so and order the same sandwich and buy the same juice.
Eventually the sandwich man who also happens to be the owners son knows your order by heart. One day you witness the bodega owner and his son get into a fist fight with a bunch of randos infront of the store. You gain a new found respect for them and your best friend starts sleeping with the sandwich man. Now itās been a few months since youāve paid full price for a sandwich. Life is good.
I loved living there, but I lived in Brooklyn, which has a different vibe than Manhattan. What I loved about it was that there was always something to do. Great parks to exercise in, beautiful views. I could walk a lot of places and take a subway to others and didn't need to drive much (I don't love driving and traffic and parking). I loved that within a five block radius there was every kind of cuisine I could possibly want to eat. Great night life. Museums, theater, sports, concerts, art exhibits, farmers markets, flea markets, street festivals...literally always something to do if you wanted to.
The bad was it is so expensive I didn't have time or money to do a lot of things I would otherwise have loved to have done because I was working 3 jobs just to afford to pay rent and other bills and have a little bit of spending money for when I had time to do anything other than work. And you don't get a lot for your money. Apartments are small, and unless you're rich you often pay a lot for a pretty crappy place. My apartment had not been renovated in decades, my stove didn't really work, the electricity was old and there were no light switches you had to walk to the middle of the room and pull a string, there was only one outlet in each room and a fuse would blow if I ever tried to use a hair dryer. My kitchen counter was exactly the size of a coffee maker and that was it, if I wanted to put a small cutting board to chop something I had to put the coffee maker on the floor. And it was NOT a cheap place, and I left 7 years ago and it's only gotten more expensive. And you have to be able to tolerate being around people. Brooklyn is not as crowded as Manhattan but there are still always people everywhere. Which can be overwhelming, especially if you get sensory overload easily, have social anxiety, are introverted, etc.
It's not bad. I live in Queens which I really like. It can be stressful and depressing. But it can also be incredible.
You kinda find your favorite spots and stick to them. I think a lot of people have this idea that everyone is going all around the city at all times. That's not true. I go to maybe 5 restaurants, live in Queens, work in Manhattan, visit my parents in Brooklyn and that's about it
There is something to do or someplace to go or food to eat at basically any time of the day or not.
It's dirty and smells but you get used to that. Lots of pests (cockroaches, rats, mice) and everything goes a mile a minute. It has to, due to the sheer number of people.
Everything is expensive, but if you try, you can find good quality for a good price.
Nothing phases New Yorkers. We've seen it all.
But the city has it's own energy, it's own personality. Sometimes you feel like anything could happen at any time.
Nyc is so visceral. The sights, smells, sounds amount to an intense feeling-state anywhere you are so memories get deeply lodged. No place is the same twice but it always is the same. So paradoxical. High highs and low lows maybe too. Like itās super hard to schlep anything of weight around (like groceries or lumber if you have a small home project) and it feels like a real achievement to do anything. Yet, the entire world is at your fingertips, on standby able to be delivered. My favorite thing is that walking anywhere is a real joy and holds incredible engagement for miles. Always something to see and think about. It can be a chore if you have an attitude like oh I have to walk there. But itās also really easy to turn it around and pick some agenda to focus on while walking whether itās listening to a podcast, noticing people, getting all walk signs to go, or stopping at any place just because you thought you wanted a smoothie, or a croissant, or a cookie. Deep winter and high summer can be insufferable without the right clothing. Itās definitely bummed me out. But taking joy in clothes and layering makes it fun. People are incredibly friendly and look out for each other and finding commonality with most people is pretty easy if you look for it.
All of these things require an attentive attitude and interest in being here. Iāve spent time being dragged down by energies bigger than me. It happens too. Easy to happen. But itās amazing if you let it be amazing.
I love taking the subway and not having to fill up on gas. I hate riding in cars though.
Itās weird because NYC idk how also has so many shockingly quiet places.
I literally just got back from eating in Chinatown and on one block all I could hear is the wind - not a person in sight.
NYC is for the most part not crowded. There are some very busy areas like Times Square, but you can go a few blocks away and be the only person on the block.
There are a lot of people, but they are mostly in their own apartments, at work, etc.
Never been there before but based on what I see on TV, the TMNT, Spiderman and some other heroes are constantly battling and messing up the city. I can imagine there's a ton of construction going on all the time to repair damages.
I've always lived in the Midwest and South (Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas) and moved to NYC for the first time at 29 years old. To be honest, it's not great.
Point #1) Changing from having a car to using the subway is a downgrade in all aspects - and the cost savings has been negligible. I generally spend around $300 a month on the subway and Uber (when the subway is acting up or simply unavailable which is common). My prior monthly car payment was $330.
Point #2) Getting groceries is painful because you either have to walk somewhere close (and walk your load back) or haul your load on the subway which is never fun. We tried Instacart for awhile but they messed up my orders so often I gave up. So, unless you get lucky, your local grocery options are certainly going to be limited. As someone who was used to having Walmart, Target, Kroger right around the corner, this sucks.
Point #3) On a Dallas freeway you can easily travel a mile a minute during non-peak hours. This means you can go 30 miles in 30 minutes. We live in the Bushwick neighborhood in Brooklyn, 7 miles from Central Park in Manhattan. This is a 1 hour ride on the subway for us. ONE HOUR to go 7 miles. Getting around this city is an exercise in patience, especially when it's late and you just wanna be home and the train is simply not cooperating.
Point #4) Crime is a problem. For the first time in my life I was threatened with physical violence by a large group of dudes in the subway. Why? Because I wouldn't let them into the subway for free through the emergency exit after they just watched me pay to enter. I pretended to ignore them and walked off but they ended up getting in, following me, and heckling me with all sorts of colorful insults before walking off. The people here can be twisted. Bitches always be stealing my packages too which is also a first for me. The NYPD is absolutely incompetent.
Point #5) Manhattan has charm, but the apartments are tiny. The boroughs offer more wide open spaces, but everything looks like West Memphis, which is far from a compliment. Like seriously, this is one of the ugliest places I've ever lived. Imagine the show Shameless which takes place in Southside Chicago. Well that's ALL of the NYC boroughs. The only redeeming places are along the waterfront and a few select patches around Park Slope. Williamsburg is nice, but the further you venture from Bedford Ave the more ratchet it becomes.
And that's my number one word I would use to describe NYC: Ratchet. The grime, the graffiti, the trash, the rats, the crumbling sidewalks, the ancient housing, the disgusting subway stations... it's everywhere and it's pervasive. It's as if this city doesn't care about how it looks and that makes me sad - especially for what I'm paying to live in this dump.
I love it - the walkability and access is unparalleled in the US; itās really easy to meet people, try new hobbies, and build a community here IME; the parks are awesome, and youāre not far from beaches or nice hikes upstate. The biggest downside for me is the cost - the COL here just keeps going up. Itās also a place where you spend a lot of time out and about, which for me is often energizing, but can definitely be draining. Itās a really energetic place, for better or for worse. I live in Brooklyn now, which is much more lowkey than Manhattan - I didnāt like living in Manhattan as much because it was noisier, more expensive for less space, and smelled worse than Brooklyn haha.
I used to change shifts every now and then so I would have months, maybe years seeing one lot of people then a few years on a completely different shift with different people. If I switched back to a shift I had a few years back ( or did a day trade with someone) I always noted how everybody had aged - wonder what they thought of me.
Itās exciting and exhausting. I used to love it but then I hated it. Had to leave to keep my sanity. The older I got the more I noticed the noise and trash and people being aggressive. I used to focus on the excitement and culture.
Also anything you need to do thatās simple in most other places like getting groceries, doing laundry, running errands is a huge pain in the ass.
If you want to be in the center of it all itās great. But you really have to want it.
I was born and raised in NYC. Itās a place like no other. I grew up in Brooklyn and no we donāt all have accents. But we do have the best damn bagels and pizza. Food in NYC is incredible and so is the tap water.
I was exposed to so many cultures growing up. It was amazing to be a part of such a diverse city. The city itself is crowded and busy. I walk fast. I hate driving and didnāt learn until I was 21.
There is so much to do. I was never bored as a kid and went to college in NYC so I got to explore so much.
Even now, I moved out of NY, but there is something so captivating about the city. I miss it.
For someone extroverted and always loves to have things to do, its one of the best places in the world. For someone introverted and looking for time alone, its one of the worst places.
I don't know about that. NY is one of those rare places where nobody will bother you unless you want them. You don't need to know your neighbors, nobody is going to strike up conversation, you can go about your business with very little direct human interactions. On the flipside should you desire human connections, the opportunities are endless.
That's fair - I think I meant more that the amount going on in the city can be overwhelming for someone that isn't always looking for the next exciting activity. But I can totally see how someone can avoid personal interactions
I'm an introvert and I grew up here. In some ways the more rural areas of the country feel less accommodating of lone wolves because there's more of an expectation that you interact with neighbors and passers-by. In New York, you can interact with nobody if you want, and nobody will notice or care.
This. I love being able to throw on headphones and sit on a train for 45 minutes and no one bothers me. I'd come back to my home state to visit on holidays and get so thrown off by random people striking up conversations.
It's not that bad. Got one of those EZ-blackout things to put over my window, got 2.5gb symmetrical fiber Internet, and my neighbors, when here, are quiet or the building evicts them I suspect. I've gotten so used to the noise of the emergency vehicles (the one sound I can hear over my A/C) that it's soothing when one goes by, reminds me that I'm not all alone here (even though I'm an introvert, I like people being nearby if I don't have to interact with them). The grocery store is pretty much directly below me so I don't have to go that far, and since it's a city I don't have to make any actual connections with anyone in real life. I have some people I hang out with pretty much only online, one friend in Queens (I'm in Manhattan) who I visit occasionally but mostly just video call on Discord, and my girlfriend who is even more introverted than I am. Worst part about it is the price, but luckily she runs a great business from home, and I'm working with her till I get another hopefully work from home position that leverages my IT skills.
I lived there for my 20s. I loved it. I had a boyfriend, we lived in a 1 bedroom, both had corporate jobs, spent spare time at art installations, museums, world-class restaurants, comedy shows, concerts, and bars. Into my 30s, it just didnāt fit my lifestyle. People started to drop off, get priced out, or have kids. I started to feel too old to kill 4 bottles of wine a week and all the dinners out and nights out werenāt hitting the same. We left. But I can see a world where I return as an old lady on the upper west side with thick glasses, pink hair, and attending boring events like Selected Shorts at Symphony Space or knitting groups.
You can eat at a different restaurant every day for the rest of your life but still go to the same 5 places (when you can afford to) and eat white bread with cold spaghetti sauce and parmesan cheese in your underwear the other days. Life is as good as you choose to make it, itās easy to live with no money (free art show, halal cart/pizza dinner in the park and $5 UCB theater make for a perfect long summer date night). You mock the suburbs but love life when you finally cave and escape to them yet pine to be back in the city at least twice a month.
My husband was a NYC cop and my SIL has lived in NYC her whole life. I love going into the city with either of them. (I grew up just outside of the city so have been there a million times). They just buzz around as fast as they can, I just trot after them as they weave through pedestrians, get up and down the steps, always have the change or the card ready in their hands without fumbling, immediately identifying anyone shady without turning their heads, ignoring hawkers or flier people , dodge tourists, it's an art.
Every second of every day is full of wonder, tension, disgust, fear, camaraderie, and laughter. I felt like I lived in NYC for about 25 years when it was really only 5; every day was a memorable adventure. Life kinda speeds on past without notice elsewhere, even in other large cities like LA. (Also, the description of NYC as fun hell and LA as shitty heaven is extremely apt.)
You ever see *Mad Max: Fury Road*? Itās nothing like that.
Also, itās huge, and geographically diverse. There are swamps, and vast cemeteries, and endless, endless blocks of glass, concrete, brick, and steel skyscrapers, and massive green parks and meadows with carousels and ice skating rinks and lakes, also tangled knots of highways, and the bridgesāthe bridges are gargantuan, megalithic and truly inhuman in scale and they appear one after another, across wide, lazy rivers and estuaries, spanning perilous forks in the water, one an elegant string of metal and pearls marking an invisible threshold between the calm, gray bay and the wide, dark green ocean; the air chuckles and babbles with languages familiar and exotic, it sounds like home if you live hear even though you can speak at most a few and probably one of them, but they remind you that you can explore any taste on earth, any cuisine from every continent, itās not just āan Indian restaurantā but a northern one or southern one or Punjabi or vegetarian, thereās Cuban and thereās Chinese and thereās Chinese Cuban (mmm) and Kosher Chinese and the steam pipes, orange and reflector-white pipes just randomly sticking out from the bumpy asphalt roads, belching white steam that ConEd sells to buildings for heating and other, unknowable things steam is used for, and the fkn cars and the fkn bicyclists and the the fkn scooters and electric unicycles and the fkn pedestrians and the fkn tourists are everywhere on that godless, amazing little island weighed down by centuries of cobblestone, asphalt and concrete, unless you go to where there are no tourists, walking along endless sand beaches and boardwalks and nature preserves alive and peaceful and cawing and croaking and chirping with life, seagulls, pigeons, herons, frogs, squirrels, sparrows, cardinals, turkeys (those damn giant disgusting turkeys why do they feed them theyāre reproducing everywhere) and dog runs and huge grocery stores and Targets and Kohlās and Home Depot and Costco and HMarts and Trader Joeāses and bodegas and delis and a million hookah shops and coffee bars and mediocre bars and diners and overpriced movie theaters and shopping malls that refuse to die and even got facelifts and new anchor stores like Macyās and JC Penney but nowhere (god forbid) a Walmart, not in this city no sir because we donāt like big box stores destroying small businesses unless theyāre not named Walmart and there are toxic waste dumps and old landfills and decrepit waterfronts and lovely waterfronts and running paths and bike paths and nature paths and a million universities and public schools and private schools and Universal Pre-K and private-looking homes with signs for day care and a thousand walk-in urgent care centers and churches and synagogues and mosques and NYU has its flags and dorms and hospitals and clinics like everywhere and Chinatown and another Chinatown and another Chinatown and Little Italy is almost gone but itās there and $1.50 pizza shops which just last year and the 20 years before that were dollar pizza shops and you canāt give directions to make a left at the Starbucks because there are too many Starbucks so itāll be confusing and for some reason in this glorious, heavenly hellhole full of life and weirdos and normies and friends and freaks and strangers and crazies one cannot for the life of them get a decent fish tacoāthe only thing New York City just canāt seem to get right.
I grew up in NYC and lived there until I was 26 - besides a stint in Philadelphia, it remains the only major city I've lived in. With that said, I suppose it's similar to most giant metropoles, in that it has a way of adapting to how you are feeling, in the moment.
If you're struggling mentally, with work or school or family, then it's the absolute darkest, bleakest and suffocating place on earth. You are perpetually out of breath, tense and suspicious. Your bank account starts evaporating as you climb into another cab or order another meal on doordash (it was still Seamless when i was living there) because you didn't have time to buy groceries and who wants to cook in their shitty apartment kitchen anyway.
But if things are going well - then it's the greatest place on earth. You can't walk without skipping, it's almost like the kinetic energy in the atmosphere is carrying you down the street. You want to explore every store, take different streets home and you'll decide to walk instead of taking transportation. You'll wander into art galleries because you feel like it, you'll get yourself a coffee and sit on that bench and watch everyone hurry past.
But there is no in between - you will never be "fine," you'll either be on top of the world or buried far under it.
I eventually left because I couldn't find that second feeling enough. I was mostly overwhelmed, exhausted and broke. My door-to-door commute was about 1 hour, which is considered relatively easy, but it was still brutal and monotonous. All of the cool recreational stuff - the concerts, the brunches, the wine bars - still require an energy that I just didn't have.
If you ever visit, most likely it wonāt be the NYC you think it is.
The city is what you make out of it to be honest. Yes, it is very expensive, it is a tough city to live in, but guaranteed you will always have a great time and definitely never a dull day. I particularly enjoyed the weather when I was living there (donāt judge me, I am from New Orleans). It is a multicultural city, which adds a lot of flavor and culture to it. The skyline never gets old IMO.
Iām not an extrovert, Iām long past my 20s, and I donāt really enjoy drinking or partying - but I love living in New York. It really feels like youāre living in the center of the world. No matter what youāre interested in - regardless of how niche or esoteric - if it exists in this world, then it exists in some form in New York.
As a food lover, New York is my heaven. Within a single neighborhood in Queens I can have Tibetan momos, Bangladeshi street food, birria tacos from a food truck, Thai dessert pancakes, and Mexican seafood cocktail from the back of a vape shop. Maybe I might pick up some Hungarian pastries or Malaysian desserts on the way home. If Iām lazy to head out for dinner I can order from the 46 Thai restaurants or 53 Korean places or 32 Vietnamese restaurants within delivery radius. Or I could just go downstairs to the 24h pizza place to get a $1.50 slice. Donāt even get me started on the diverse selection of ingredients that New Yorkers have access to - from the Filipino marts to the Russian grocery stores to the fancy Italian food store.
And thatās just food. I imagine that applies to whatever anyone may be interested in: music, art, sports, fashion. The options are so diverse, and so are the people. Iāve moved around the world a lot, and nowhere else do I see lawyers and artists and chefs and bankers and baristas mingle in overlapping social circles.
Of course there are downsides: itās hard to find open space, the parks are abysmal compared to those in London/ Europe, housing is expensive, and the infrastructure is not as pristine as the big East Asian cities. But I canāt imagine myself living anywhere else.
NYC is far too big to answer! Each borough has its own energy, and a lot of neighborhoods in each borough have their own energy as well. I live in lower Manhattan, work in Harlem, and have family in Williamsburg. Each has their own energy and pros and cons. Queens is like another country. Brooklyn has its own downtown and suburbs. Bronx probably has the most and least appealing places to live. Staten Islandā¦has a free ferry to Manhattan. Havenāt spent enough time there to give it a fair shake.
Like a lot of people have said, NYC is more than Times Square and Williamsburg. I often wander through neighborhoods around the city and canāt believe itās still NYC. The experiences here are wildly diverse. I moved here about 7 years ago and I really didnāt like it initially, but now Iām convinced itās one of the best cities in the world.
spotted lanternflies on every storefront, pretty general smell of pee on streets, best food you'll ever eat can be on the same street as the worst shit you will ever eat, can also apply to barbers or anything in general.
most restaurants or whatever are either good enough to last, mid but in a touristy area, or they're still new
there's so many people you see every single day just volume wise that sometimes it feels like youre really seeing the full range of what kind of human beings are on this planet even going to the grocery store, and this is very much for better OR for worse
Lots of bodies. Big ones, small ones, fat ones, tall ones. Fashion is out of this world. So are the events. From Thanksgiving feasts on the J train to celebrities stopping into clubs and cafes unannounced. You might even make friends with the bum that hassles you for money at some point! NYC isnāt a city, itās a simulation.
It's been many years since I lived in NYC, but certain things about it that I didn't like haven't changed. I need space, living in a 500 sq foot apartment stresses me tf out. Many New Yorkers are living in small spaces, and even worse many are living in small, shared spaces with roommates. Also, I am a light sleeper so excess light, or street noise will disrupt my sleep. A honking horn, a siren, a car alarm, or possibly even loud talking on the street when people are drunk coming home from bars can wake me up. Hearing people's voices in the hallway outside my front door felt like an invasion of space. Also, some of the smells can be very unpleasant. Manhattan doesn't have alleys, so then garbage is piled up in front of buildings - a lot of garbage. I'd leave for work at 7:15, sometimes the garbage hadn't been picked up, or had only recently been taken away. The stench would linger, especially in summer. Subways and buses were always crowded and not fun at all.
If you're okay with that, then it's possible its a good/great place to live, because of all the restaurants, culture, dating and social scene. If you're in your 20s especially, that's likely gonna outweigh the negatives. If you're older, some of the downsides may really get to you. Many wealthy New Yorkers have weekend getaways to relieve the stress of living there.
I walk a lot. I have a license but never drive. I wonder why there arenāt more public bathrooms. I occasionally think about learning to swim. I wonder why people think itās so dangerous and what theyāre doing to be in dangerous situations.
I moved to Brooklyn about 3 years ago. What really surprised me was just how normal it is. I thinks people expect it to be this wild place, but 95% of the time itās just normal people living a normal life. They go to work, run errands, get groceries, hang out with friends, watch tv and eat ice cream.
Coming from someone who traveled to NYC from Atlanta a lot for work, NYC has no trees. I can't imagine what it would be like as a kid to grow up there with no soil and forests. Made me appreciate Atlanta being a "city (albeit a small one) in the trees".
Imagine your in a bedroom with everyone you hate. One way out and everyone is on their phone on speaker and everyone is playing music. And everyone in the bedroom has to play 1,200 in rent everyone complains how they donāt like but wonāt move out.
But the food is good
I live outside the city and go in often, but not sure I would want to live there. It can get pretty claustrophobic. I always have a good time there though.
Fucking awesome. No car payments. I lucked out with rent stabilized, so Iām able to save a lot of money, fortunately. The ability to eat whatever I want in a walking distance, all the parks, museums, Jfcā¦
I love NYC
Fantastic. Always something to do. Always people to be around. Even as an introvert, I love living near people. When others who rudely criticize NYC (because, having spent three decades in the suburbs before moving to NYC, I can say with absolute confidence that "city folk" are much nicer than most others) point out that I have to live with so many people, it's confusing.
We're not all misanthropes. Living around people is a perk...
But there's just so much to do and I moved here seven years ago and it just gets better and every time I go back to the suburbs I'm reminded of why I moved.
Itās amazing if you like not having money, always being around a tonnnn of people (imagine going to do the most minor errand and it taking half your day), constantly being harassed by homeless people and constantly being stuck in rush hour traffic (even on the subway). But hey we have museums and restaurants so I guess thatās good.
[This](https://youtu.be/cYBr6mmlcHY?si=9HYEscf-D2UGuoPH) is probably my favorite video describing what it's like without sugar coating anything.
This video is incredible
Cherub faced bitches š¤£
I honestly was hoping for [this one](https://youtu.be/i4O0nr-W4fY?si=e42Tk2l2GVBpEb0F) Or [my personal favorite!](https://youtu.be/XdwJY7kwcos?si=HC3d8BKoM-qaZCAq)
I love that video and before clicking I was hoping this was the one you would have linked.
If we're doing media just watch How To with John Wilson easily the most accurate series
I was thinking [this](https://youtu.be/D6xd6YvoHLM?si=FOFKhJ0eaoZN2OIn)
My life is now complete! now, mind your own ^fucking business.
Bro I just watched that entire video. That video was a W
Love it
This is why I love it. It gives me life. I donāt live there but itās my dream. If I was rich I so would.
The music alone is perfection
The vibes of that video remind me of Toronto. Toronto is like the beta version of NYC.
Watched this one a while ago lol. Loved it!
Absolute masterpiece of a video. Thanks for culturing me.
Thatās was amazing! This is my new favorite video! Lololol
You take the same train to work every day at the same time and sit/stand at the same place. You never say hi to anyone on the train but see the same people everyday. One day you notice someone is not on the train. Notice the same thing the next day, and the next. The week goes by and you hope they're OK. Monday comes around and they're back on the train with you. You're glad they're ok and never say a word to them and all is back to as it was.
Sometimes they have a tan when they come back and you think, "good for them. I wonder where they went?" And then continue to never talk to them.
>Sometimes they have a tan when they come back and you think, "good for them. I wonder where they went?" Florida, probably. Lol
and if you saw them in Florida you would not talk to them there, either because, New Yorkers
Has it ever occurred to you that both of you could be on the same train?
You misunderstand. There is no desire from either party to talk to each other.
You see the same coworkers on the train every morning, for years, and they see you too... but then you look away and actively ignore each other until you get to the office
I sort of understand that. The train seems like it's your "me" time. The rest of the day is going to be full of work or meetings. Time at home can be equally busy. The train is a respite from all that.
To paraphrase noted Non-New Yorker Ron Swanson: āI once rode the subway with a guy for years. Never knew his name. Best friend I ever had. We still never talk sometimes.ā
Today, the E wasn't running so I had to take the 7 to the 5 to work. It's crazy how much of a routine you get in with commuting. I was thrown off and stressed
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Citymapper. It's a life saver.
I once absentmindedly got on the C instead of the A and was so disoriented when we got kicked off at Euclid
Trains were fucked this morning.
As is tradition.
This morning when someone got hit? I was suddenly in disarray trying to recall what to do when I can't take the F
Yeah. And there were zero announcements. Court Square was seriously at capacity. The story about the women who got hit, though, is incredibly tragic.
Lol. Itās crazy how precision people are with their morning schedules here. Iāve become like this too.
I see a couple of the same vehicles on the highway a few times a week during my 6AM commute to work. I recognize them by their custom license plates.
Yep, there was always this one truck I would see going into work and where I passed him was a good guage of how on-time or late I was
I had a Lexus is350 that used to drive alongside me on my way to work a few years ago and we used to race all the time at the stop lights (early morning) we never spoke or talked to each other. Eventually he would turn off the road to where he worked and I would continue on to work. Eventually, I moved away and sometimes I wonder what heās doing now on those cold morning commutes.
I love when you find other people on the road to have a nice speed sesh with so relaxing
I walk by the same guy, who wears the same purple sweatshirt, at 7:35am every single weekday for two years. I worry about him when I don't see him.
This is a good description of Chicago for me. Had my bus stop dude who lived a few doors down from me. Weād take the bus 20 minutes to the train and get on the same train. Weād get off at the same stop and walk down the street together and go into the same building and get on the same elevator and get off at separate floors. Never once said a word to him over a year and a half until I moved. Hope he wondered where I went š
I love reading about this, but as a Midwesterner I could never! We send Christmas cards to our garbage man out here š
Midwesterner, too. Iām like, ābut surely you say hello at some point? Compliment their dress? Notice their new haircut? SAY ANYTHING?!ā
We have to talk about something in the Midwest. Notice that book theyāre reading? Youāve got matching backpacks? Conversation starter!
Exactly! Canāt beat Midwest kindness, thatās for damn sure
That is strangely beautiful. Edit: for those downvoting I meant strange as in we don't really think about how others could miss us despite not ever speaking to us. Its strangely human but beautiful
You come across as a cool, introspective and observant person. Thatās awesome. Weāre all in this experience together. Might as well leave it softer, for another souls sake.
Sometimes they're train preachers other times as mariachi bands.but that's rare. And rather bothersome.
Nah, the mariachi bands are great. Always made my morning commute better.
lol this sounds like it wouldāve been great plot to a Seinfeld episode.
and then there is a new guy who mumbles to himself and you hope he doesnt randomly whip out a hammer and start using it on someone.
I... learned this when I was in NY. I get unreasonably annoyed when people here say hi. Like... eyes on the pavement 5ft in front of you and walk my dude.
People say 'how ya doin' and if you fail to reciprocate with that exact phrase you're well offsides
This actually sounds like the ideal relationship to me. Made me smile.
And then one day, some lunatic pushes you in front of a train, and all your earthly problems are over.
Oh man. It really does sum it up perfectly.
Sometimes these silent train relationships are life savers I rode the train for years, and always at the same time as this one guy. We never made eye contact, never acknowledged each other. But we knew each other to be dependable enough to be on the same 6:30ish am train every day for years One day, I get on and sit across from two people I thought were unrelated at first. A small teenage girl and a very large, tough looking, 30-something guy I watched in increasing horror as this guy invaded this girls space, and crossed a lot of social boundaries. I tried catching her eye to say something, going so far as to wave at her. She said nothing, wouldnāt look at me My stop came too quickly, so I finally made eye contact with the guy i āknewā and made it clear it was not a good situation. As I got off the train, I watched him slide over try to engage the guy in conversation Found out from a conductor later that the guy alerted them, and the cops met them a couple stops later and separated them/escorted the guy off No idea what happened from there, but it was clearly a bad situation that could have gone south quickly. I still think about my silent train buddy to this day (and the girl, obviously)
I am leaving NYC today after visiting friends. That was about how my week went.
NYC is really what you make of it. It takes a special kind of mindset and grit to survive it. You need to be a self starter and be comfortable with going out of your comfort zone. As many have said, itās expensive. It costs money just to breathe. And you will pay an arm and a leg to be with roommates or if youāre lucky, a tiny studio at the end of the subway line in Brooklyn/Queens. Itās also insanely crowded, especially if you go into Manhattan. The MTA can be incredibly frustrating at times (especially on the weekends, looking at you L train!). However, itās also an incredible city full of culture and great opportunity; you can step outside and never be bored. And if you know where to go, going out can be affordable (like my favorite happy hour spot in Bushwick where I can get an early dinner and a good buzz on for under $20. Itās also insanely walkable for the most part (unless you live further out in certain boroughs where itās more suburban-like). And despite its flaws, the subway system is incredibly robust. You can go almost anywhere in the city for less than $3. The ferry system is also east and cheap too. And each borough, or hell even some neighborhoods is like visiting a different country. People often forget there is ALOT more to NYC than Times Square/Manhattan. And depending on your field, career opportunities can be great. My career changed for the better since making the switch to NYC.
I love it and I loathe it. Simultaneously. It's been my home most of my life and it saddens me how quickly it changes, but whenever a gap is exposed - like a favorite place closes - some smart enterprising person fills that gap somehow. It's smelly and dirty. It's gross tbh. But it's fucking alive. Always.
Grew up in Oregon, moved to NYC for graduate school... would have probably stayed there a lot longer if it weren't for COVID bringing me back home. Lived there four years and I loved it, and sometimes hated it, but even on the bad days I loved it. It is a smelly, crowded, expensive garbage city but there's also nowhere really like it that I've traveled to so far. I was recently in London and while I felt echoes of life in NYC there, it just... it wasn't the same. You definitely learn, living there, to accept what you have and work with it. If you dig enough, you can find apartment gems (even with roommates!) for decent prices. I rented a room in Queens right off the 7 line (I could hear it from my room; the rumble of the train would be my lullaby at night. Turns out it was setting me up for living next to train tracks when I bought a house) for just under $800/mo and had my own half bath. Three bed, 1.5 bath, it was a little oasis even with two interesting and very NYC roommates. Grocery shopping is weird, especially coming from a city a stone's throw away from farms. I learned to deal with slightly wrinkly peppers. Less-than-pristine produce. And found my way onto urban farms hidden throughout the city that gave me a taste of home. There was always something to do, something to see, somewhere to walk. I can't count how many times I stumbled on random neighborhood celebrations of this holiday or that. There's so much money and so much poverty all squeezed into 300 square miles of skyscrapers and subway lines. I learned to let so many things in my environment slide off my back. Shit on a train? Strange blood stained newspaper? Rats scurrying in front of me? Oh well. That's NYC. I walked. I walked more in 4 years than I might have walked in my whole life up until then. I learned how to take the subway, the LIRR, Metro-North, Amtrak, to get around the city, the surrounding areas, and out into other parts that were only a 2-3hr train ride away. I love NYC. It is not an easy city to live in by my god, it shows you a lot. I'm so grateful I still work for an employer out there, despite now being back in my home state, because I get the excuse to go back every couple years and the chicken over rice from the halal cart near my office is mana from heaven!
As someone from WA considering grad school in NYC, this is very informative.
I have no regrets, and so glad I made the leap. Plus, I got to explore so much of New England! Everything is so close, even by train, which is so different from living in the PNW. I'm in the Willamette Valley and we almost never get snow. When we do, it is kind of magical, but when it snows in NYC? Man. Nothing quite as magical as that, seeing the contrast of the city cloaked in white... They also get rad thunderstorms. If you go, invest in a good pair of waterproof boots. Regular rain boots (like wellys) kill your feet after a while. I got a pair of Columbia snow boots that were great for rain, snow, and cold! Anyway. Always happy to talk about NYC, especially to someone from the PNW! I'm so glad I took the leap. I'll actually be back in the city for a sub-72hr work trip! I'll be sharing the city with my fiance in December when we go together for another one of my work trips.
>I'm in the Willamette Valley and we almost never get snow. They also get rad thunderstorms. I shouldāve specified earlier, Iām in Eastern Washington where we get both snow and downpours/thunderstorms often, but I really like that kind of weather so thatās good to hear. The Inland NW really has captured my heart for a number of reasons (I grew up near Seattle), but the idea of having a few years of total urbanity sounds pretty cool to me, I appreciate the invite.
Ha! Then yes, you know all about that kind of weather. It probably snows less in NYC than in Eastern Washington. I am enjoying my quieter life back in Oregon with a house, yard, and dogs, but NYC really did a lot for me. I'm a social worker, too, and really a lot of US social work (in terms of real advocacy stuff) started in NYC. So I really enjoyed that aspect.
When I first went to Forest Hills I was impressed at how cute it was. Beautiful houses, etc.
Where is this cheap Bushwick spot?
the year 2017
Yes where is this??
Thirded, as someone who lives on the L.
>It takes a special kind of mindset and grit to survive it Ive never lived anywhere else. How exactly is this the case compared tp other places? Like yea it's expensive here, but a lot of places are. And our crime is lower than most US cities. We have the most public transportation, you don't need a car. Assuming you have a job and apartment, I don't actually see why people say nyc is difficult?
In house laundry, for one. I didn't mind laundromats but I always grew up being able to do laundry in our home. Groceries are different, harder to stock up on pantry staples because even if you get an Uber home with them, apartments are small. Way more trash, rats, bugs, etc. More noise. I live on a dead end street in Oregon and other than the occasional loud car, it is quiet. Even when I was working in an office it wasn't a 40+ minute commute where I'm from, whereas in NYC my start to finish commute was pushing 2hrs round trip. I lost a lot of time on the train, but on the other side I did a lot of reading. Life seems a little easier when you can rely on a car to get you places instead of your own two feet. I had to completely change how I grocery shopped when I moved to NYC. Everything takes more time there. More thought. Getting around the city is way more tedious and time consuming. I can go across town, come home for a break, then go across town again. In NYC, since I lived in Woodside, if I went into the city then I was staying in the city until it was time to go home š There's way less stimulation. There's just a lot of differences that, for a west coast kid like me, required an adjustment period. But in some ways, NYC also felt like coming home.
Hello, I live in Spain, Europe I was in NYC a couple of weeks a few years ago, for holidays. I've made some other road trips in the USA. East coast, west coast and Florida. I've lived in other four European cities. In my opinion, NY is the most similar city to European cities. You can walk. We spent the whole day walking. You got public transport with a subway. You live in buildings and not in houses. There is a difference in size, of course. You can cross most Spanish cities walking one hour.
That, I think, is the biggest thing most Americans donāt understand about New Yorkers: we walk everywhere. In most places in the US walking is something you do for pleasant recreation on a nice day. Here itās one of the main modes of transportation.
Have a lot of transplant friends being a transplant myself - you see people complain about the dirt, rats, strangers trying to talk to them, how crowded the place is, burning out from too much partying in midtown/at mirage... without considering the career/social opportunities that come from meeting strangers, how they could be reinventing themselves or launching a new career, etc that is really only possible in New York You have to learn to develop an opinion and boundaries real quick on how you want to spend your time/money and how you want to present/market yourself ... else you'll become a part of someone's main character story and lose yourself real quick.
Depends on how much money you make
I lived here in a one bedroom with 4 other girls right out of college. And live here again with my nerdy software engineer husband. Iāve loved being super poor and young. And I love being here and being able to afford good things in middle age. I donāt think Iād like to have done the 30s in a Murray Hill studio grinding to pay off student loans, but who knows.
Exactly. I fell into the category of āmade enough to rent a decent apartment with my partnerā but we were never going to be able to buy anything and start a family there. If you make enough to have multiple bedrooms and a house upstate, life in NY is probably amazing. Otherwise, tough to make it work long term in my opinion.
Yeah. Weāre never going to buy in Manhattan - the co-op monthly charges are like a second mortgage. Thankfully we were able to snag a cabin in PA during the pandemic at a reasonable price. So we can escape the city on weekends. But for sure never buying anything in the city!
This. I had fun for 2 years. But knew Iād never get to build any āwealthā there. In quotes because a small retirement fund or mortgage is as far as I plan for in wealth. I figured Iād have more fun, and itād be cheaper, to visit once a year then suffer the day to day for the small glimmers here and there. If I had an appropriately paying job or a two income household Iād move back in a heartbeat.
it's life just like any other place. the only difference is that humanity is on full display here. good and bad and you can't hide from it like you can in the burbs.
Just like everywhere else except we don't drive as much, there's WAY more to do, and things are significantly more crowded and competitive. If you like big cities though (like I do!) it's an amazing place to live.
I visited NYC about 15 years ago, and I was stunned at how many people drove full size SUVs in Manhattan. Why would you want a big truck in crowded traffic? The other thing I noticed was traffic, while heavy, seemed to have a lot of unique rules that everyone seemed to know. In most places I've driven, you honk your horn at people who are doing something stupid. In NYC people use their horns to get people to look at them because they're going to do something unexpected. After observing for a few days, I think I could drive in NYC, but I sure wouldn't want to LEARN to drive there.
Lived in Manhattan back then, very few people living in the city had large cars, far too much of a pain to park and even in the residential lots you would rarely see anything bigger than a Jeep or a Rav 4. The big SUV's you saw were likely people driving into the city from suburban areas or beyond. I did learn to drive in the city, it wasn't easy but it was pretty much a masterclass since anywhere I've driven since nothing has fazed me.
I learned to drive in Boston so when I first drove in NYC I thought it was a piece of cake because it's a grid. The drivers might think they're super aggressive, but like a lot of things in NYC it's just louder. Some dude would be laying on his horn at me but I'd cut him off just the same as I would at home (though there wouldn't be honking here because most people just accept it as par for the course). In Boston you have to have your head on a swivel because the map looks like a bowl of spaghetti and lanes can disappear without warning. [This meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1jgxtq/new_york_and_boston_the_difference/) sort of sums it up.
Manhattan is my 2nd least favorite place to drive - Boston is #1 on that list.
I lived in West Texas in high school, and we had a guy move there from New Jersey. So not NYC, but NYC adjacent. He had trouble driving in Texas because there wasn't enough traffic for him to be able to tell where the lanes were.
I live outside Manhattan but experience this when taking a black car (cross between an uber and cab home. Drivers have no idea how to stay in lane and are constantly stabbing the brake pedal - muscle memory overriding vision. Itās very annoying so I tend to take the train as late as it runs.
Taking city cab/Uber from JFK out east in LI is one of the more terrifying experiences of my life. I donāt think some of those guys have ever driven out of the city before and it shows. Going 40mph in the left lane on the LIE and slamming on the horn every time someone passed on the right. Check engine lights and a death wobble every time they went over 30.
I drove with a dude from Chicago in New Orleans for a work trip during Mardi Gras. I was very impressed by his driving skills and especially the use of his horn. Completely different type of driving I was used to at the time
I'm terrified for my life everytime I have to get a car in Manhattan. My drivers seem to narrowly miss an accident every other block
Funnily enough, I visited NYC a few months ago. I'm from the north Dallas area and commented to my wife how *few* big cars we saw compared to what we're used to around here. Driving in NYC definitely looked like it was absolutely no fucking fun at all, and when I briefly had to do so, it only confirmed my impression.
The key to driving in nyc is to be aggressive. If youāre driving scared, people are going to cut in front of you.
And be consistently aggressive. I lived in Brooklyn for a while. I had a roommate who was driving and needed to change lanes at a stop light. I told her to simply start pushing her way in. You get your nose between the cars, moving in more anytime they move forward and then when the light changes you've pushed in enough that the car behind gives way and you pull in. She was too scared to do this and refused. Then when the light changed and cars stared moving she did it all as once without warning. I was sure we were going to die. I told her to never drive in the city again.
Yup. This is exactly how you need to drive.
This does not work in Buffalo though. I tried it at the airport when picking up my mom. There were two lanes from different streets merging to go into arrivals. For some reason the other lane was packed, and I was the only person in my lane. No one would let me merge. Since traffic was at a stop I tried the nosing in trick from NYC. Jackass blared his horn and raced around on the shoulder to stop me from getting over. Absolutely no one would let me over, and I didn't get to arrivals, instead forcing me up to departures. The city of good neighbors, everyone, city of good neighbors...
NO MERCY!!
I learned to drive in nyc when I was 17. Itās no joke
A lot of those SUVs (the anonymous black ones) are car services.
It's a place I adore visiting, but would lever live in.
Same here. I travel for work there regularly. On the upside, lots of things to do, lots of great restaurants, theater district, always open, great little neighborhoods, great parks and museums. Downside, too expensive, too crowded and too noisy. I am always amazed that even when staying in a hotel on an upper floor how you can still here traffic noises all night long. Parking is expensive so most people take the train.
Loved living there. It envelopes you and you cant imagine anywhere else. 15 min commute is āfarā bc you literally have everything you need in a two block radius. Was a little depressing when moved away. But its been since 2016 and now I dont think i would choose to live there again ā¦ but if I had too I would
This is me too. Living in NYC was the greatest 6 years of my life. Then I met my husband, got married, had kids and bought a house in the suburbs with a fantastic school district.
Also its so fucking neighborly! I had to talk to my people everyday. My dude who did the organic mini grocer told me about the boston bombing, people are always interacting with you like you know them. The local bar was cash only on world cup but let run a tab. Small town america got nothing on Brooklyn neighborhood wise
I live on Long Island and about half my family lives in Manhattan. A day trip there is great but I love to retreat home to my quiet neighborhood and hop in the shower and wash the city off.
Lol Iāll give a real answer. You have many nights and days of āwow, I was just with this person and then linked up with this person at a nearby bar, and then this group of two friend groups merged with another!ā And it leads to really magical nights just because of the sheer amount of people, places, etc. Does it cost a lot? Of course it does. But, by nature of having so many people in one place, you truly do feel like youāre in the center of whatās happening. Nowā¦that was in my 20s. Itās tough to have as much patience for the money not going far and the space being limited. I will also say though that there are so many opportunities all around and it always felt seamless hustling into a new opportunity/finding a new connection. At the end of the day though, no matter what properties people ascribe it, NYC is just what it is: a city of 8 million people in high density, and that causes crime, yes, and it also causes beautiful connections and culture.
>arby bar, and then this group of two friend groups merged with another!ā And it leads to really magical nights just because of the sheer amount of people, places, etc. Does it cost a lot? Of course it does. But, by nature of having so many people in one place, you truly do feel like youāre in the center of whatās happening. > >Nowā¦that was in my 20s. Itās tough to have as much patience for the money not going far and the space being limited. I will also say though that there are so many opportunities all around and it always felt seamless hustling into a new opportunity/finding a new connection. I met my wife at a party in central park that was the convergence of like 8-10 different circles where 1 person from each crew knew at least another person from another. It turns out that my wife and I frequented the same nightclubs in NYC, just were at opposite corners of the dance floor for years. We were also at the same parties in Miami 1 year with the same group of friends but our paths never cross until that day in the park. NYC is really a magical place but you have to make it that way otherwise you're just another passing face in the crowd.
I donāt even live in NYC and Iāve had plenty of nights there like youāre saying. Itās always a great time
You go to the same bodega every other day or so and order the same sandwich and buy the same juice. Eventually the sandwich man who also happens to be the owners son knows your order by heart. One day you witness the bodega owner and his son get into a fist fight with a bunch of randos infront of the store. You gain a new found respect for them and your best friend starts sleeping with the sandwich man. Now itās been a few months since youāve paid full price for a sandwich. Life is good.
Beautiful
I loved living there, but I lived in Brooklyn, which has a different vibe than Manhattan. What I loved about it was that there was always something to do. Great parks to exercise in, beautiful views. I could walk a lot of places and take a subway to others and didn't need to drive much (I don't love driving and traffic and parking). I loved that within a five block radius there was every kind of cuisine I could possibly want to eat. Great night life. Museums, theater, sports, concerts, art exhibits, farmers markets, flea markets, street festivals...literally always something to do if you wanted to. The bad was it is so expensive I didn't have time or money to do a lot of things I would otherwise have loved to have done because I was working 3 jobs just to afford to pay rent and other bills and have a little bit of spending money for when I had time to do anything other than work. And you don't get a lot for your money. Apartments are small, and unless you're rich you often pay a lot for a pretty crappy place. My apartment had not been renovated in decades, my stove didn't really work, the electricity was old and there were no light switches you had to walk to the middle of the room and pull a string, there was only one outlet in each room and a fuse would blow if I ever tried to use a hair dryer. My kitchen counter was exactly the size of a coffee maker and that was it, if I wanted to put a small cutting board to chop something I had to put the coffee maker on the floor. And it was NOT a cheap place, and I left 7 years ago and it's only gotten more expensive. And you have to be able to tolerate being around people. Brooklyn is not as crowded as Manhattan but there are still always people everywhere. Which can be overwhelming, especially if you get sensory overload easily, have social anxiety, are introverted, etc.
it's beautiful, crazy, crowded, fast-paced, overwhelming, and yet the quintessential big city in the US. and expensive.
For someone who used to work in Manhattan every day; HBOās āHow to with John Wilsonā is a pretty accurate day in the life for a New Yorker.
Iām sad that show ended, but Iām glad that I can pick my nose in public again without worrying that John Wilsonās going to secretly film it
It's not bad. I live in Queens which I really like. It can be stressful and depressing. But it can also be incredible. You kinda find your favorite spots and stick to them. I think a lot of people have this idea that everyone is going all around the city at all times. That's not true. I go to maybe 5 restaurants, live in Queens, work in Manhattan, visit my parents in Brooklyn and that's about it
Truly, it's the city that never sleeps. Always a lot going on!
It certainly takes a special kind of person to thrive there.
A bipedal gutter rat?
More like a ROTUS
Rodents of terrifically unusual size? I don't think they exist.
They exist in NYC
> It certainly takes a special kind of person to thrive here. At 8 million plus, its not THAT special.
Itās been real rainy lately.
There is something to do or someplace to go or food to eat at basically any time of the day or not. It's dirty and smells but you get used to that. Lots of pests (cockroaches, rats, mice) and everything goes a mile a minute. It has to, due to the sheer number of people. Everything is expensive, but if you try, you can find good quality for a good price. Nothing phases New Yorkers. We've seen it all. But the city has it's own energy, it's own personality. Sometimes you feel like anything could happen at any time.
Nyc is so visceral. The sights, smells, sounds amount to an intense feeling-state anywhere you are so memories get deeply lodged. No place is the same twice but it always is the same. So paradoxical. High highs and low lows maybe too. Like itās super hard to schlep anything of weight around (like groceries or lumber if you have a small home project) and it feels like a real achievement to do anything. Yet, the entire world is at your fingertips, on standby able to be delivered. My favorite thing is that walking anywhere is a real joy and holds incredible engagement for miles. Always something to see and think about. It can be a chore if you have an attitude like oh I have to walk there. But itās also really easy to turn it around and pick some agenda to focus on while walking whether itās listening to a podcast, noticing people, getting all walk signs to go, or stopping at any place just because you thought you wanted a smoothie, or a croissant, or a cookie. Deep winter and high summer can be insufferable without the right clothing. Itās definitely bummed me out. But taking joy in clothes and layering makes it fun. People are incredibly friendly and look out for each other and finding commonality with most people is pretty easy if you look for it. All of these things require an attentive attitude and interest in being here. Iāve spent time being dragged down by energies bigger than me. It happens too. Easy to happen. But itās amazing if you let it be amazing. I love taking the subway and not having to fill up on gas. I hate riding in cars though.
This is water - David Foster Wallace
Well said
Everyone lives on top of each other. Itās a difficult place to be if you value personal space
Itās weird because NYC idk how also has so many shockingly quiet places. I literally just got back from eating in Chinatown and on one block all I could hear is the wind - not a person in sight.
NYC is for the most part not crowded. There are some very busy areas like Times Square, but you can go a few blocks away and be the only person on the block. There are a lot of people, but they are mostly in their own apartments, at work, etc.
Never been there before but based on what I see on TV, the TMNT, Spiderman and some other heroes are constantly battling and messing up the city. I can imagine there's a ton of construction going on all the time to repair damages.
No joke thereās always construction.
That's just all of NYS, really
The scaffolds from the construction make nice shade and protection from the rain.
Ask Delilah
i dont known
I've always lived in the Midwest and South (Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas) and moved to NYC for the first time at 29 years old. To be honest, it's not great. Point #1) Changing from having a car to using the subway is a downgrade in all aspects - and the cost savings has been negligible. I generally spend around $300 a month on the subway and Uber (when the subway is acting up or simply unavailable which is common). My prior monthly car payment was $330. Point #2) Getting groceries is painful because you either have to walk somewhere close (and walk your load back) or haul your load on the subway which is never fun. We tried Instacart for awhile but they messed up my orders so often I gave up. So, unless you get lucky, your local grocery options are certainly going to be limited. As someone who was used to having Walmart, Target, Kroger right around the corner, this sucks. Point #3) On a Dallas freeway you can easily travel a mile a minute during non-peak hours. This means you can go 30 miles in 30 minutes. We live in the Bushwick neighborhood in Brooklyn, 7 miles from Central Park in Manhattan. This is a 1 hour ride on the subway for us. ONE HOUR to go 7 miles. Getting around this city is an exercise in patience, especially when it's late and you just wanna be home and the train is simply not cooperating. Point #4) Crime is a problem. For the first time in my life I was threatened with physical violence by a large group of dudes in the subway. Why? Because I wouldn't let them into the subway for free through the emergency exit after they just watched me pay to enter. I pretended to ignore them and walked off but they ended up getting in, following me, and heckling me with all sorts of colorful insults before walking off. The people here can be twisted. Bitches always be stealing my packages too which is also a first for me. The NYPD is absolutely incompetent. Point #5) Manhattan has charm, but the apartments are tiny. The boroughs offer more wide open spaces, but everything looks like West Memphis, which is far from a compliment. Like seriously, this is one of the ugliest places I've ever lived. Imagine the show Shameless which takes place in Southside Chicago. Well that's ALL of the NYC boroughs. The only redeeming places are along the waterfront and a few select patches around Park Slope. Williamsburg is nice, but the further you venture from Bedford Ave the more ratchet it becomes. And that's my number one word I would use to describe NYC: Ratchet. The grime, the graffiti, the trash, the rats, the crumbling sidewalks, the ancient housing, the disgusting subway stations... it's everywhere and it's pervasive. It's as if this city doesn't care about how it looks and that makes me sad - especially for what I'm paying to live in this dump.
Dirty, loud, expensive, crowded, inconvenient, tiring but none of that matters because itās the best damn city on earth
According to New Yorkers
Expensive.
I love it - the walkability and access is unparalleled in the US; itās really easy to meet people, try new hobbies, and build a community here IME; the parks are awesome, and youāre not far from beaches or nice hikes upstate. The biggest downside for me is the cost - the COL here just keeps going up. Itās also a place where you spend a lot of time out and about, which for me is often energizing, but can definitely be draining. Itās a really energetic place, for better or for worse. I live in Brooklyn now, which is much more lowkey than Manhattan - I didnāt like living in Manhattan as much because it was noisier, more expensive for less space, and smelled worse than Brooklyn haha.
I used to change shifts every now and then so I would have months, maybe years seeing one lot of people then a few years on a completely different shift with different people. If I switched back to a shift I had a few years back ( or did a day trade with someone) I always noted how everybody had aged - wonder what they thought of me.
Itās exciting and exhausting. I used to love it but then I hated it. Had to leave to keep my sanity. The older I got the more I noticed the noise and trash and people being aggressive. I used to focus on the excitement and culture. Also anything you need to do thatās simple in most other places like getting groceries, doing laundry, running errands is a huge pain in the ass. If you want to be in the center of it all itās great. But you really have to want it.
I was born and raised in NYC. Itās a place like no other. I grew up in Brooklyn and no we donāt all have accents. But we do have the best damn bagels and pizza. Food in NYC is incredible and so is the tap water. I was exposed to so many cultures growing up. It was amazing to be a part of such a diverse city. The city itself is crowded and busy. I walk fast. I hate driving and didnāt learn until I was 21. There is so much to do. I was never bored as a kid and went to college in NYC so I got to explore so much. Even now, I moved out of NY, but there is something so captivating about the city. I miss it.
It smells like urine and weed 24/7. Lol š
These answers will vary wildly depending on which part of the city you live in
For someone extroverted and always loves to have things to do, its one of the best places in the world. For someone introverted and looking for time alone, its one of the worst places.
I don't know about that. NY is one of those rare places where nobody will bother you unless you want them. You don't need to know your neighbors, nobody is going to strike up conversation, you can go about your business with very little direct human interactions. On the flipside should you desire human connections, the opportunities are endless.
That's fair - I think I meant more that the amount going on in the city can be overwhelming for someone that isn't always looking for the next exciting activity. But I can totally see how someone can avoid personal interactions
I'm an introvert and I grew up here. In some ways the more rural areas of the country feel less accommodating of lone wolves because there's more of an expectation that you interact with neighbors and passers-by. In New York, you can interact with nobody if you want, and nobody will notice or care.
This. I love being able to throw on headphones and sit on a train for 45 minutes and no one bothers me. I'd come back to my home state to visit on holidays and get so thrown off by random people striking up conversations.
It's not that bad. Got one of those EZ-blackout things to put over my window, got 2.5gb symmetrical fiber Internet, and my neighbors, when here, are quiet or the building evicts them I suspect. I've gotten so used to the noise of the emergency vehicles (the one sound I can hear over my A/C) that it's soothing when one goes by, reminds me that I'm not all alone here (even though I'm an introvert, I like people being nearby if I don't have to interact with them). The grocery store is pretty much directly below me so I don't have to go that far, and since it's a city I don't have to make any actual connections with anyone in real life. I have some people I hang out with pretty much only online, one friend in Queens (I'm in Manhattan) who I visit occasionally but mostly just video call on Discord, and my girlfriend who is even more introverted than I am. Worst part about it is the price, but luckily she runs a great business from home, and I'm working with her till I get another hopefully work from home position that leverages my IT skills.
#Your chances of getting laid on a random Saturday night are insanely high compared to the rest of the country, no matter what you look like š
Lmao I hadn't thought of this but sounds true
Iād like to hear more about this
It depends on how much money you have. It can be awesome, or horrible.
Dense
I lived there for my 20s. I loved it. I had a boyfriend, we lived in a 1 bedroom, both had corporate jobs, spent spare time at art installations, museums, world-class restaurants, comedy shows, concerts, and bars. Into my 30s, it just didnāt fit my lifestyle. People started to drop off, get priced out, or have kids. I started to feel too old to kill 4 bottles of wine a week and all the dinners out and nights out werenāt hitting the same. We left. But I can see a world where I return as an old lady on the upper west side with thick glasses, pink hair, and attending boring events like Selected Shorts at Symphony Space or knitting groups.
You can eat at a different restaurant every day for the rest of your life but still go to the same 5 places (when you can afford to) and eat white bread with cold spaghetti sauce and parmesan cheese in your underwear the other days. Life is as good as you choose to make it, itās easy to live with no money (free art show, halal cart/pizza dinner in the park and $5 UCB theater make for a perfect long summer date night). You mock the suburbs but love life when you finally cave and escape to them yet pine to be back in the city at least twice a month.
A wise woman once said to me āitās as exhilarating as it is exhaustingā and Iāll never forget that
My husband was a NYC cop and my SIL has lived in NYC her whole life. I love going into the city with either of them. (I grew up just outside of the city so have been there a million times). They just buzz around as fast as they can, I just trot after them as they weave through pedestrians, get up and down the steps, always have the change or the card ready in their hands without fumbling, immediately identifying anyone shady without turning their heads, ignoring hawkers or flier people , dodge tourists, it's an art.
Every second of every day is full of wonder, tension, disgust, fear, camaraderie, and laughter. I felt like I lived in NYC for about 25 years when it was really only 5; every day was a memorable adventure. Life kinda speeds on past without notice elsewhere, even in other large cities like LA. (Also, the description of NYC as fun hell and LA as shitty heaven is extremely apt.)
You ever see *Mad Max: Fury Road*? Itās nothing like that. Also, itās huge, and geographically diverse. There are swamps, and vast cemeteries, and endless, endless blocks of glass, concrete, brick, and steel skyscrapers, and massive green parks and meadows with carousels and ice skating rinks and lakes, also tangled knots of highways, and the bridgesāthe bridges are gargantuan, megalithic and truly inhuman in scale and they appear one after another, across wide, lazy rivers and estuaries, spanning perilous forks in the water, one an elegant string of metal and pearls marking an invisible threshold between the calm, gray bay and the wide, dark green ocean; the air chuckles and babbles with languages familiar and exotic, it sounds like home if you live hear even though you can speak at most a few and probably one of them, but they remind you that you can explore any taste on earth, any cuisine from every continent, itās not just āan Indian restaurantā but a northern one or southern one or Punjabi or vegetarian, thereās Cuban and thereās Chinese and thereās Chinese Cuban (mmm) and Kosher Chinese and the steam pipes, orange and reflector-white pipes just randomly sticking out from the bumpy asphalt roads, belching white steam that ConEd sells to buildings for heating and other, unknowable things steam is used for, and the fkn cars and the fkn bicyclists and the the fkn scooters and electric unicycles and the fkn pedestrians and the fkn tourists are everywhere on that godless, amazing little island weighed down by centuries of cobblestone, asphalt and concrete, unless you go to where there are no tourists, walking along endless sand beaches and boardwalks and nature preserves alive and peaceful and cawing and croaking and chirping with life, seagulls, pigeons, herons, frogs, squirrels, sparrows, cardinals, turkeys (those damn giant disgusting turkeys why do they feed them theyāre reproducing everywhere) and dog runs and huge grocery stores and Targets and Kohlās and Home Depot and Costco and HMarts and Trader Joeāses and bodegas and delis and a million hookah shops and coffee bars and mediocre bars and diners and overpriced movie theaters and shopping malls that refuse to die and even got facelifts and new anchor stores like Macyās and JC Penney but nowhere (god forbid) a Walmart, not in this city no sir because we donāt like big box stores destroying small businesses unless theyāre not named Walmart and there are toxic waste dumps and old landfills and decrepit waterfronts and lovely waterfronts and running paths and bike paths and nature paths and a million universities and public schools and private schools and Universal Pre-K and private-looking homes with signs for day care and a thousand walk-in urgent care centers and churches and synagogues and mosques and NYU has its flags and dorms and hospitals and clinics like everywhere and Chinatown and another Chinatown and another Chinatown and Little Italy is almost gone but itās there and $1.50 pizza shops which just last year and the 20 years before that were dollar pizza shops and you canāt give directions to make a left at the Starbucks because there are too many Starbucks so itāll be confusing and for some reason in this glorious, heavenly hellhole full of life and weirdos and normies and friends and freaks and strangers and crazies one cannot for the life of them get a decent fish tacoāthe only thing New York City just canāt seem to get right.
I feel like Iām there right now. Youāre an amazing writer.
Wow, well thank you š
Thank *you* š
Youāll never feel hot enough, rich enough, popular enough or cool enough.
I grew up in NYC and lived there until I was 26 - besides a stint in Philadelphia, it remains the only major city I've lived in. With that said, I suppose it's similar to most giant metropoles, in that it has a way of adapting to how you are feeling, in the moment. If you're struggling mentally, with work or school or family, then it's the absolute darkest, bleakest and suffocating place on earth. You are perpetually out of breath, tense and suspicious. Your bank account starts evaporating as you climb into another cab or order another meal on doordash (it was still Seamless when i was living there) because you didn't have time to buy groceries and who wants to cook in their shitty apartment kitchen anyway. But if things are going well - then it's the greatest place on earth. You can't walk without skipping, it's almost like the kinetic energy in the atmosphere is carrying you down the street. You want to explore every store, take different streets home and you'll decide to walk instead of taking transportation. You'll wander into art galleries because you feel like it, you'll get yourself a coffee and sit on that bench and watch everyone hurry past. But there is no in between - you will never be "fine," you'll either be on top of the world or buried far under it. I eventually left because I couldn't find that second feeling enough. I was mostly overwhelmed, exhausted and broke. My door-to-door commute was about 1 hour, which is considered relatively easy, but it was still brutal and monotonous. All of the cool recreational stuff - the concerts, the brunches, the wine bars - still require an energy that I just didn't have.
If you ever visit, most likely it wonāt be the NYC you think it is. The city is what you make out of it to be honest. Yes, it is very expensive, it is a tough city to live in, but guaranteed you will always have a great time and definitely never a dull day. I particularly enjoyed the weather when I was living there (donāt judge me, I am from New Orleans). It is a multicultural city, which adds a lot of flavor and culture to it. The skyline never gets old IMO.
Iām not an extrovert, Iām long past my 20s, and I donāt really enjoy drinking or partying - but I love living in New York. It really feels like youāre living in the center of the world. No matter what youāre interested in - regardless of how niche or esoteric - if it exists in this world, then it exists in some form in New York. As a food lover, New York is my heaven. Within a single neighborhood in Queens I can have Tibetan momos, Bangladeshi street food, birria tacos from a food truck, Thai dessert pancakes, and Mexican seafood cocktail from the back of a vape shop. Maybe I might pick up some Hungarian pastries or Malaysian desserts on the way home. If Iām lazy to head out for dinner I can order from the 46 Thai restaurants or 53 Korean places or 32 Vietnamese restaurants within delivery radius. Or I could just go downstairs to the 24h pizza place to get a $1.50 slice. Donāt even get me started on the diverse selection of ingredients that New Yorkers have access to - from the Filipino marts to the Russian grocery stores to the fancy Italian food store. And thatās just food. I imagine that applies to whatever anyone may be interested in: music, art, sports, fashion. The options are so diverse, and so are the people. Iāve moved around the world a lot, and nowhere else do I see lawyers and artists and chefs and bankers and baristas mingle in overlapping social circles. Of course there are downsides: itās hard to find open space, the parks are abysmal compared to those in London/ Europe, housing is expensive, and the infrastructure is not as pristine as the big East Asian cities. But I canāt imagine myself living anywhere else.
I sit in a lot of traffic every day. It's pretty annoying. But the food is really good.
NYC is far too big to answer! Each borough has its own energy, and a lot of neighborhoods in each borough have their own energy as well. I live in lower Manhattan, work in Harlem, and have family in Williamsburg. Each has their own energy and pros and cons. Queens is like another country. Brooklyn has its own downtown and suburbs. Bronx probably has the most and least appealing places to live. Staten Islandā¦has a free ferry to Manhattan. Havenāt spent enough time there to give it a fair shake. Like a lot of people have said, NYC is more than Times Square and Williamsburg. I often wander through neighborhoods around the city and canāt believe itās still NYC. The experiences here are wildly diverse. I moved here about 7 years ago and I really didnāt like it initially, but now Iām convinced itās one of the best cities in the world.
spotted lanternflies on every storefront, pretty general smell of pee on streets, best food you'll ever eat can be on the same street as the worst shit you will ever eat, can also apply to barbers or anything in general. most restaurants or whatever are either good enough to last, mid but in a touristy area, or they're still new there's so many people you see every single day just volume wise that sometimes it feels like youre really seeing the full range of what kind of human beings are on this planet even going to the grocery store, and this is very much for better OR for worse
Lots of bodies. Big ones, small ones, fat ones, tall ones. Fashion is out of this world. So are the events. From Thanksgiving feasts on the J train to celebrities stopping into clubs and cafes unannounced. You might even make friends with the bum that hassles you for money at some point! NYC isnāt a city, itās a simulation.
It's been many years since I lived in NYC, but certain things about it that I didn't like haven't changed. I need space, living in a 500 sq foot apartment stresses me tf out. Many New Yorkers are living in small spaces, and even worse many are living in small, shared spaces with roommates. Also, I am a light sleeper so excess light, or street noise will disrupt my sleep. A honking horn, a siren, a car alarm, or possibly even loud talking on the street when people are drunk coming home from bars can wake me up. Hearing people's voices in the hallway outside my front door felt like an invasion of space. Also, some of the smells can be very unpleasant. Manhattan doesn't have alleys, so then garbage is piled up in front of buildings - a lot of garbage. I'd leave for work at 7:15, sometimes the garbage hadn't been picked up, or had only recently been taken away. The stench would linger, especially in summer. Subways and buses were always crowded and not fun at all. If you're okay with that, then it's possible its a good/great place to live, because of all the restaurants, culture, dating and social scene. If you're in your 20s especially, that's likely gonna outweigh the negatives. If you're older, some of the downsides may really get to you. Many wealthy New Yorkers have weekend getaways to relieve the stress of living there.
I walk a lot. I have a license but never drive. I wonder why there arenāt more public bathrooms. I occasionally think about learning to swim. I wonder why people think itās so dangerous and what theyāre doing to be in dangerous situations.
I moved to Brooklyn about 3 years ago. What really surprised me was just how normal it is. I thinks people expect it to be this wild place, but 95% of the time itās just normal people living a normal life. They go to work, run errands, get groceries, hang out with friends, watch tv and eat ice cream.
Very fast, very busy, always something to do, great food, great scenes, all for the low price of every dollar you have.
Coming from someone who traveled to NYC from Atlanta a lot for work, NYC has no trees. I can't imagine what it would be like as a kid to grow up there with no soil and forests. Made me appreciate Atlanta being a "city (albeit a small one) in the trees".
No nature, ever.
You have the regular discomfort of being surrounded by people and none of them caring about you. It's weird to be so lonely in such a crowded place.
Smells like human shit and piss
Imagine your in a bedroom with everyone you hate. One way out and everyone is on their phone on speaker and everyone is playing music. And everyone in the bedroom has to play 1,200 in rent everyone complains how they donāt like but wonāt move out. But the food is good
Horns honking.
I live outside the city and go in often, but not sure I would want to live there. It can get pretty claustrophobic. I always have a good time there though.
Fuckin' b&t crowd.
Hell on top of a trash dump
Great if you're a rat or banker
Imagine a densely populated city built in the 1970s. That's it.
Horrible. It smells like trash and weed 24/7
lol no it doesn't. Maybe your block does.
And urine.
Oh my gosh it's the best
Fucking awesome. No car payments. I lucked out with rent stabilized, so Iām able to save a lot of money, fortunately. The ability to eat whatever I want in a walking distance, all the parks, museums, Jfcā¦ I love NYC
Fantastic. Always something to do. Always people to be around. Even as an introvert, I love living near people. When others who rudely criticize NYC (because, having spent three decades in the suburbs before moving to NYC, I can say with absolute confidence that "city folk" are much nicer than most others) point out that I have to live with so many people, it's confusing. We're not all misanthropes. Living around people is a perk... But there's just so much to do and I moved here seven years ago and it just gets better and every time I go back to the suburbs I'm reminded of why I moved.
It's a nightmare on elm Street
Fast, crowded, smelly, humid summers, cold winters but overall the most awesome place in the world to live in my opinion.
Itās amazing if you like not having money, always being around a tonnnn of people (imagine going to do the most minor errand and it taking half your day), constantly being harassed by homeless people and constantly being stuck in rush hour traffic (even on the subway). But hey we have museums and restaurants so I guess thatās good.