I’m moving to Brooklyn after living in Boston for 21 years (i.e. my entire life). Instead of asking a boring question like, “So, like, what’s New York like?”, I wanted to know: What are five things I should know about living in New York?
I’m moving to Brooklyn after living in Boston for 21 years (i.e. my entire life). Instead of asking a boring question like, “So, like, what’s New York like?”, I wanted to know: What are five things I should know about living in New York? I watch sports enough but I don’t give a shit about dude-man-bro fervent sports rivalries. My friend Julia is from Brooklyn and she said, “NEWS FLASH: New Yorkers don’t give a shit about petty sports rivalries.” Plus, The Boston Bruins mascot is a fucking bear. How can I not wear a shirt with a fucking bear on it?
Thanks,
-BABYBOMBS
P.S. I don’t know if this post will just feature a picture from Titty City, but just in case, I attached a picture of from the movie The Edge. I guess some abstract parallelism can be draw if I compared myself to Anthony Hopkins and New York was the bear.
Dear Babybombs,
I know you really wanted me to write back, and I’m gonna try to answer this to the best of my ability. Truth be told, I’ve lived here for so long now, I don’t even remember what the rules are for living here. So I guess, above all else, in spite of the five things you should know about living in NYC that I’m about to mention, New Yorkers are prone to contradiction and not giving a shit. It’s not apathy. It’s coolness. This can also come across as having a mean ‘tude but in fact, New Yorkers are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s the people who aren’t from New York that think they have to be mean to fit in. It’s just a certain kind of cool that isn’t like California “laid back, let’s share a doobie, stranger” cool. It’s “Nice to meet you, I got shit to do, get out of my way, thanks” cool.
Anyway, here are five things you should know about living in NYC:
1. WE LOVE TO COMPLAIN
Don’t complain about us complaining. It’s just our thing. We especially love to complain about the weather. Yes, we know the weather is better in LA. We know! We still want to complain about our weather because it’s ours! The winter is too fucking cold, the summer is disgustingly hot. During the spring, “Oh Gawd, my allergies!” Everyone loves fall.
2. IT’S TRUE THAT NEW YORKERS DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT SPORTS RIVALRIES
We fake it sometimes but ultimately we don’t really care. No one is even a Yankees fan unless they live in Murray Hill or the Bronx. Most of the sports nuts are transplants. That’s fine. Once every few years indie rockers and punks will decide to get really into the Jets or something, but it’s just a phase they go through and it never sticks. The same goes for politics.
3. PEOPLE DON’T HANG OUT IN OTHER PEOPLE’S APARTMENTS
I’ll go to my friend’s place for some one-on-one girl time and obviously there are some small gatherings on occasion, but overall, no one is chilling around each other’s places college-dorm-room style. We mostly meet each other for meals, drinks and when it’s nice out, just straight chill on a stoop or at the park. It’s an outdoors city even though outdoors types will have you think otherwise. The fun part of living in NYC is when someone says, “Come to Mogador, we just ordered,” you can actually make it there in 10 – 18 minutes and everything is cool. I have cried in diners to some of my best friends and still have not seen the inside of their apartment.
4. DON’T HAVE YOUR PARENTS STAY WITH YOU WHEN THEY COME TO VISIT
It’s just weird. Tell them to stay at a hotel. Also, don’t bring them out with you. We don’t want to know you have parents, dude. We don’t want to talk to your dad at the bar. This rule bends now that I’m older and parents are more in the scene, but in your 20s, just leave your parents in their hotel room eating a porcelain bowl full of chocolate ice cream from room service — where they belong!
5. WE DO LIKE DOING TOURIST STUFF
It’s true that I’ve never been to the top of the Empire State Building, but that’s only because I don’t care to go. I love doing other tourist things, such as taking in a matinée on Broadway and then eating at the Olive Garden (endless bread sticks). People here don’t think it’s dorky to go to museums or to eat at Mars 2012. However, always assume that no one is actually ever doing stuff like that and when you don’t see someone for a few weeks it usually means they just didn’t feel like going outside. We get everything delivered. We are a social bunch, but we also retreat and isolate when need be. You’ll get used to the rhythm eventually. We also think it’s weird when people have cars. But, if you are moving here with a car, can you give me a ride to the Empire State Building?
-LESLEY ARFIN
LesleyArfin.com
CafeconLesley.BlogSpot.com
Send “Ask Barf” letters / replies to AskBarf@StreetCarnage.com (include photos!)
Don’t forget fags. New Yorkers love fags. Because that’s what they all are: fags!
Complaining is the best!
I was just thinking about #3 the other day. I think the biggest difference socially between NYC and every other place I have lived is that there isn’t a place I go where a bunch of people are just hanging out. I used to always have some place that like 5 people I knew were living and I could just go over there when I was bored and people would be hanging out. If I want to do that now I go to a bar but it’s not really the same. I sort of miss it but then I sort of don’t miss wasting my life away on my buddys couch watching him play video games and smoke weed.
does crack still come in vials in NY? I always thought that was cool.
fyi, my crack is vile
I disagree with number four. Since so many New Yorkers are transplants from somewhere else we sometimes crave the sense of organic community that we left behind in whatever bullshit place we’re from, like Round Rock, Texas. My friends all love it when someone brings their parents out because we get to stop being urban orphans for a moment and reconnect with a mom or a dad.
I brought my dad to my bday party in prospect park a few years ago and he was the hit of the party. now everyone asks if he’s coming again this year. maybe this just means I’m really lame and my dad is cooler than me.
does everyone who lives in boston read this site?
Disagree with two and five. Go outside of lower Manhattan and Williamsburg, you know the rest of New York where actual New Yorkers grew up and live in, they care about sports rivalries, someone has to be generating all that huge revenue for the Giants, Yankees, Knicks, Rangers, Jets, and Mets, just cause you don’t actually know a ton of people born here or hang around them doesn’t mean they don’t care about their sports.
Number five, anyone actually born here hasn’t gone to the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty since a field trip in elementary school. New Yorkers stop going to see tourist sights once their parents stop trying to culture them or the field trips stop. When you mean New Yorkers, are you only talking about your immediate circle of people who have lived here for under ten years?
“I’ll go to my friend’s place for some one-on-one girl time”.
Total missed opportunity to put a hipster porn photo on the top of the post.
new yorkers talking about new york are the reason I’ve never been to new york
PHILLY REPRUHZENT.
I always thought Woody Allen was some guy that always seemed to have a hard on.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097388/
#2 crazy false
The only thing I hated about this article was how dago-guinea-wop-goomba-grease ball this sounded. Ever heard an Italian-American say “Hey, I tell because I’m Italian!” “Hey, I’m Italian–we do that!” I hate that.
http://thankyoubrooklyn.tumblr.com/post/4283525184/three-for-three-brooklyn-is-bear-country
#6) ‘Da fok? You dint include: we really do love us some bagels! Helluva shmear campaign you ain’t got! Shookah!
“The only thing I hated about this article was how dago-guinea-wop-goomba-grease ball this sounded. Ever heard an Italian-American say “Hey, I tell because I’m Italian!” “Hey, I’m Italian–we do that!” I hate that.”
haha, i’m a wop and i concur. that’s how we fuckin’ do!
The empire state building is a really long line up to go up 87 floors in an elevator to get to another line up to go up another 20 floors just to find out you’re actually kinda afraid of heights. do the skyride and get motionsick first. then wait in line to go back down the elevators. Pee first cause you’re not allowed to go when you’re in there.
Yeah right the Empire State Building. Like I’m gonna pay a shit-ton of money to go stand in line surrounded by yelling teenagers from an Iowa high-school marching band for three hours just so I can see Jersey better.
my fav thing about ny is u can walk around all day
i’d really like to hear Gav’s take on this. also, #2 is bullshit.
no one has a real job and everyone is a “creative”
EYE CONTACT is a sign of overt aggression here in NYC.
In a city of 8 million people you will still feel lonely.
HPV is the new cool party disease.
Avoid places that charge more than $5 for a beer.
Watch Gavin’s ‘How to piss in public’.
Everyone is a “weirdo”.
NY isn’t just a more southerly Boston. It’s got 13 times more people inside its city limits. (~8.4m vs. ~650k).
Or, taken as a metro area, it has 4 times more people. (~19.1m vs. ~4.6m) Either way, it makes Boston look sleepy and backwaterish.
Consequently, you can be more easily crushed and more fully sated and debauched.
Also it’s way way way more of a 24 hour town. Welcome. You’re nothing. Now get busy running around in neurotic possibly productive circles.
Yes the people in NYC were surprisingly nice. I found that people really exaggerated how dirty and crazy the city is. It’s not the set of “The Warriors”.I felt safer there than here in Chicago which blows more than a cheerleader on prom night.
Another transplant, if your parents are going to pay your rent stay the fuck in Boston.
i think being able to walk around all day is a huge one now that it’s not fucking freezing (complaining about the weather)
I love Barf. I’ve had a V.C. (virtual crush) on here for years now. And her advice is usually spot on. But, #3 mainly applies to certain parts of Manhattan. You’ll probably be living in Brooklyn (assumption) so you can disregard it. Maybe #1 too. What do I know though. I live in Alphabet City under a drug dealer named Robot.
well to answer your question, if you wear a boston bruins shirt, people might suspect you’re not from new york. You might have to find a different shirt with a bear on it. Might be rough coming up with the change though, as a 21 year old moving to a city with such a high standard of living, right?
Your anecdotes are so cool. Your analysis of the way one experiences New York is clearly correct. The question was posed to the correct person on the matter. You are valued and appreciated by at least one person.
so many frikin’ generalizations ova here ova here..
New York is huge but people in the demo of this site carve out a much smaller fiefdom to live in, so it basically just ends up being a collection of two or three neighborhoods your friends hang out in where you will agree to go and where you work and live. The rest of the map is nonexistent.
^ all white people.
Which is only 13% of New York Shitty, so take their advice however you can. That is all.
^^^Hey Jennifer, the corrupt US government makes up false statistics like there’s only 13% white people in NYC, the same as they lie about global warming–because leftists like you want Communist Control. Then all these same lies are repeated in the MSM, and you believe it. BUT I’ve seen Sex and The City MANY TIMES and I read this website, so I know there’s actually very few coloreds in NYC. And it hasn’t snowed in MY backyard lately, so I can see right through your whole One-UN-Controlled-World agenda, because I’m smart enough to only believe what I see with my own two I’s! P.S., kid, why do you want to move to NYC anyway when it’s just full of commie negro-loving fags like Jenny here? Are you a fag too? with the girl pants?
#3 #4 your apartments gonna be to small to have any one over ala matthew broderick in the film elections ending
@Negro Science tl;dr bro.
too lazy;dumb retard
there is nothing more obnoxious than people born in NYC saying shit like “oh so you lived for what like 10 years?” as though coming out of a cunt in Brooklyn rather than Tulsa is any kind of achievement.
This site needs more bears. The animal kind.
Bears love marshmallows, so I have no doubt they’ll be coming down to BK next winter.
In Brooklyn people hang out at each others apartments all the time
Also if you are really rich you have people over too
Hmm thinking back I always hung out at peoples apartments age 18-28
Actually I just think 3 is wrong
Btw the observation deck at 30 rock is better than empire state building
Number five is good.
Soo Chest, there is nothing more obnoxious than people not from New York who only engage one small group of peers in two neighborhoods, telling everyone else what real New York is…
Makes it sound like a boring place full of boring people with too much money. I like openings and shows, but I don’t need to have them happening 24 hours a day.
Everyone hangs out at each other’s apts! Maybe your friends have really shitty living spaces and that’s why you don’t visit one another at home…
#1 is true, but most of these are off point, especially #3. if you’re a transplant (like most) then it’s possible you don’t have good enough friends to hang out at each others houses. but instead of going to some place to spend $ on drinks and food my friends prefer to hang out at houses and chill for free. also, if you grew up in nyc then it’s rare that your parents will be coming to visit since they’re already here. i also think its suspect to give advice about what new yorkers are like if you’re not from here. i find transplants have a completely skewed view of what the city is truly like at heart.
[...] 7. “What are the 5 things I should know about living in New York?” [StreetCarnage] [...]
The no hanging out in apts can be really true if you have a broke circle of friends that are scattered across all the ass ends of town ( bronx, harlem, queens, crown heights etc etc)
Then you need to meet in a central location to avoid 2 hour subway rides.
i stand by it, “nonsense.” and i would like to add that i don’t come to wear you work and slap the dick outta your mouth.
So totally and utterly on the money.
ps: to the holocaust never happened: how long do you have to be here to no longer be a transplant? is 10 years long enough? because if not, then are only people who were born and raised in one ofthe five borroughs “real” new yorkers”? because that definition seems to miss the point of essential New Yorkness.
also: are staten islanders the same kind of “real new yorkers” as kids who grew up on the UES? both real new yorkers, but very different folk.
I HAVE MUCH BETTER ADVICE FOR NIGGAS ON WHAT TO DO IN NYC (FOR THE ADVENTUROUS CAUCASIAN)
who cares if anyone is or is not hanging out in some ganky apartment?
thank you to lady friend for sharing.
walking around all day….for president.
why did Tulsa have to get dragged into this mud? funny!
i have to admit…i have done some stupid things but never did I ask advice on what rules apply to my life to a stranger.
Bye bye now.