New Yorkers Aren't Rude. You Are.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 9/6/13 at 7:17pm

This is a must read. Loved it and agree with it completely.

~~ This is, I feel, based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what this place is. New York is a massive city where most people have high-pressure jobs and their time is very precious. That isn't unique, though it's to an extreme in New York that most people from other parts of the U.S. haven't experienced.

It is also a city where the American infatuation with the combustion engine has been replaced by walking and public transportation. This is a small city, geographically, with an extensive system for getting you where you need to be without a car. Add to that tons of people, and it's going to be one of the most crowded foot traffic experiences that most people have ever been a part of. This matters because it affects the basic rules of politeness within New York to a degree that you might not expect.

Many people realize, when they enter a small town, that there are unwritten codes of conduct amongst the people there that have been arrived at by years of social interaction. One of the things that an outsider has to do if they wish to be accepted is learn and respect these rules. ~~


Read all of it HERE

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 9/7/13 at 10:56am

~ i know this is written from a new yorker vs. tourist perspective but i have to add this is not always the case. some new yorkers are rude to each other.

~ from personal experience i truly believe there are some people out there that that are just rude, nasty and inconsiderate because they can be.

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 9/7/13 at 2:14pm

I love New York.

[suestorm]

Posted: 9/7/13 at 2:49pm

The major fllaw of this article is NYC is not just trendy Manhattan.

I'm guessing the author hasn't ever been above 125 st or the 4 outer boroughs. We love to smile are polite and love our SUVs there.

Updated On: 9/7/13 at 02:49 PM

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 9/7/13 at 3:13pm

I once had native tell me that I didn't need my "F*CKing umbrella" because it wasn't raining THAT hard and it was in his F*CKin way. Yeah, dude. I had 20 blocks to walk. Not raining THAT hard + 20 blocks = a very wet, pissed off me. Blow me, dude.

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 9/7/13 at 11:15pm

JerseyGirl2, I grew up in Northern NJ and saw very little difference between New Yorkers and New Jerseyites in terms of politeness. When I got to California and later, the DC area, I realized that there is some truth to the stereotype that folks from the NY area are more gruff in general than other Americans. I concluded that it had to do with being in a hurry and being in very crowded conditions.

I am not sure that New York area people are truly rude -- they just don't put up with what they see as bulls==t. I worked in what was then Abraham & Straus (and is now Macy's) in Paramus, New Jersey. I sold bras and other underwear. Those customers could be REALLY rude and I theorized that it was because, in those days, most bras were kept behind the counters in bins, and it was impossible for a customer to lie about her size and obtain a proper fit. If I asked a customer who didn't fit into a 34B if she wanted to try a 36B or C, she'd get angry, because there was obviously something wrong with the merchandise.

So, are folks from the NY area more rude than elsewhere? I don't know, but I can't think of another place where a nun and another customer would argue about who was first in line.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/8/13 at 5:45am

Oddly, I never found New Yorkers particularly rude when I was a tourist visiting the city. More rushed, perhaps, but generally quite willing to stop and give directions, even in the bad old, "dangerous" 1970s.

What the blogger seems to miss is that tourists hold up traffic because they don't know where they are going. It's a common condition of newcomers and not an excuse to throw them onto the third rail.

If uninterrupted traffic flow is so important to Manhattanites, perhaps they should spend less money telling the rest of the country how much they "heart" NY. Sooner or later we'll forget and visit Boston or Chicago instead.

[jnb9872]

Posted: 9/8/13 at 8:01am

As a native Bostonian, if you visit that fair city and get lost, you're par for the course. The streets downtown were designed by cows, for Christ's sake. Manhattan has the grid, for the most part. If you're lost in Manhattan, I really have much less sympathy for you. The streets are all numbered. It's not hard. But in Boston, good luck! Even as a native, I often had very little idea where anything is in relation to anything else...

[D2]

Posted: 9/8/13 at 8:20am

That was you, JG2? I'm so sorry.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/8/13 at 12:17pm

It's not just tourists. Part of the problem is that people move to New York thinking that being rude is part of the experience.

For example, many of the streets in Greenwich Village are small. If two people are walking together someone has to give way to a person coming from the other direction. I'm amazed at how many people are so entitled that they can't step aside to let another person pass.

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/8/13 at 12:31pm

^ my chief gripe! When these people refuse to move over so that I can pass, I just crash right into them. I don't think they even have a clue.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 9/8/13 at 5:09pm

Gaveston I beg to differ. There are tourists who come to town enmass and bring with them their double wide SUV mega strollers who think it is ok just to stop in the middle of the sidewalk to discuss the tall buildings, or to text the folks back home the sites of NYC. Working up at 30 Rock, I see this a lot and get very annoyed! It is like a spandex covered fatty blood clot in a major artery.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/9/13 at 6:33pm

SNAFU, I bow to your knowledge of NYC. I haven't been there much of late. But you DO work at a tourist attraction, so some congestion is to be expected.

jnb, I have long said Boston is the most confusing city on earth, but it is lovely. Fortunately, my daughter has lived there since she was a freshwoman in college (she now has kids in middle school), so I let her do the driving.

[suestorm]

Posted: 9/9/13 at 6:43pm

Seriously you think those doublestrollers are tourists? Hate to break it to you but they're natives. And I'm sure when us cool NYERS go somewhere we aren't in tune with 100% of everything. Itz impossible. I admit I wasn't on my vacation. I actually got stopped in Paris for crossing against the light even with no cars in site.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/9/13 at 7:26pm

People weren't rude when NYC still had the Love stores.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 9/9/13 at 7:32pm

Gaveston, yes being in a tourist destination I do expect congestion, I also expect people to do their upmost to not compound the problem. It really doesn't take much, just a little of just being aware of your surroundings and the flow of the traffic.

[Tom1071]

Posted: 9/10/13 at 3:07pm

I saw this on CNN today. According to polls taken by Conde Naste Traveler, Newark, NJ is the #1 unfriendliest city in the world. New York didn't even make the list. That being said, New York didn't make the friendliest list either.






Top 20 Friendliest and Unfriendliest Cities in the World Updated On: 9/10/13 at 03:07 PM

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 9/10/13 at 3:22pm

Oof. JG2 or Erik? Care to chime in?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/12/13 at 9:49pm

SNAFU, my mother was a professional geographer and "map reading" was taught early in our house. When I am in an unfamiliar place, I memorize the map before I venture out. (I once spent 5 days in Paris without ever checking a map. I had memorized it on the train even without the benefit of understanding French.)

But not everybody has those skills.

Moreover--and this was true even when I lived in NYC for 9 years--traveling underground can be very disorienting. There were many times I wound my way around the underground only to have my directions completely backwards when I emerged into the street.

New York City survives in no small part because of tourist dollars. Maybe ya'll should cut them some slack.

(FWIW, I live in a tourist resort (Palm Springs). Not nearly as crowded, but same principle applies.)

And ETA: although when I was a tourist I found New Yorkers very kind about giving directions, I also found them largely clueless. (Elsewhere I've told the story about following directions to the Empire State Building and ending up in Staten Island.) So some of those tourists may well be trying to sort out directions they were careful to get in advance.

[Kad]

Posted: 9/12/13 at 10:34pm

I'll cut them slack for disorientation in a new place.

But stopping in the middle of sidewalks to take photos? Stopping in subway station entrance ways for photos? Huddling in large groups on busy sidewalks, conferring about their next stop for minutes?

There's only so much slack I can cut for them when they are being rude or disruptive in a fashion that being a visitor cannot justify.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 9/13/13 at 6:28am

Exactly Kad! I always have time tohelp tourists find their way around the city. I am constantly approached sometimes as much as four times during a walk to work. Stopping giving instructions, sometimes walking out of my way to lead them somewhere when they seem to be having trouble with Eglish instructions, I am fine and good with. Yes, I do know this city relies heaviy on tourist dollars as well.
There are just some common sense things, ettiquette, that everyone should know if they just took a moment to be aware of others and their surroundings.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/13/13 at 1:08pm

Those damn groups blocking the sidewalks and hallways and clustering at the top and bottom of escalators and stairways -- damn them to hell!

I've reached a point where I'll say "excuse me" twice, just to be polite and let them know that someone needs to get by please, and if they don't make way I'll just push my way through.

If I behaved in their hometown as stupidly as they're behaving in my hometown, I'd be called the Rude New Yorker. They're just the Rude Tourists.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 9/13/13 at 2:31pm

PTOP - how unsympathetic. Do you think that the reason those bra shoppers were rude is because their boobs were painfully compressed in the wrong size bras! hahahhaah

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/13/13 at 10:46pm

I always have time tohelp tourists find their way around the city.

Good for you, SNAFU! As I said above, before I moved there, I found you very typical of New Yorkers in their treatment of tourists.

And for the record, yes, tourists should take into consideration that people actually live in NYC and have to get to work, run errands, etc.

I'll never forget trying to tour Madame Tussaud's in London: there was such crowds have their pictures taken in front of wax celebrities, it was impossible to see the exhibits. So I do know what ya'll are talking about.

[artscallion]

Posted: 10/16/13 at 8:34am

NEW YORKER