topaz | ...except Brooklyn is not a road trip!

You Know You're From New York City When...

You say "the city" and expect everyone to know that this means Manhattan.

You have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.

You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle
to Battery Park at 3:30 on the Friday before a long weekend, but can’t find
Wisconsin on a map.

Hookers and the homeless are invisible.

The subway makes sense.

You believe that being able to swear at people in their own
language makes you multi-lingual.

You've considered stabbing someone just for saying "The Big Apple".

The most frequently used part of your car is the horn.

You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a yard.

You consider Westchester "upstate".

You think Central Park is "nature."

You see nothing odd about the speed of an auctioneer's speaking.

You're paying $1,200 for a studio the size of a walk-in closet
and you think it’s a "steal."

You've been to New Jersey twice and got hopelessly lost both times.

You pay more each month to park your car than most people in
the U.S. pay in rent.

You haven't seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since
you went away to camp as a kid.

You go to dinner at 9 and head out to the clubs when most Americans
are heading to bed.

Your closet is filled with black clothes.

You haven't heard the sound of true absolute silence since the 80s,
and when you did, it terrified you.

You pay $5 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28 cents.

You take fashion seriously.

Being truly alone makes you nervous.

You have 27 different menus next to your telephone.

Going to Brooklyn is considered a "road trip."

America west of the Hudson is still theoretical to you.

You've gotten jaywalking down to an art form.

You take a taxi to get to your health club to exercise.

Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing
on your toes.

$50 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag.

You have a minimum of five "worst cab ride ever" stories.

You don't notice sirens anymore.

You live in a building with a larger population than most
American towns.

Your doorman is Russian, your grocer is Korean your deli man is Israeli,
your building super is Italian, your laundry guy is Chinese, your favorite
bartender is Irish, your favorite diner owner is Greek, the watchseller on your
corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your newsstand guy
is Indian and your favorite falafel guy is Egyptian.

You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

You secretly envy cabbies for their driving skills.

You think $7.00 to cross a bridge is a fair price.

Your door has more than three locks.

Your favorite movie has DeNiro in it.

You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

You run when you see a flashing "Do Not Walk" sign at the intersection.

You're 35 years old and don't have a driver's license.

You ride in a subway car with no air conditioning just because there are seats available.

You're willing to take in strange people as roommates simply to help pay the rent.

There is no North and South. It's uptown or downtown.

When you're away from home, you miss "real" pizza and "real" bagels.

You know the differences between all the different Ray's Pizzas.

You're not in the least bit interested in going to Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Your internal clock is permanently set to know when Alternate Side of the Street parking
regulations are in effect.

You know what a bodega is.

You know how to fold the New York Times in half, vertically, so that you can read
it on the subway or bus without knocking off other passenger's hats.

Someone bumps into you, and you check for your wallet.....

You cringe at hearing people pronounce Houston St. like the city in Texas

Film crews on your block annoy you, not excite you.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from NYC.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

While I did not live in NYC (Jersey City is close enough for me!), I will have to say that living out here in the midwest now is making me miss life in the big city something fierce!

DT? izzat you?

Yup. Bitty dragged me kicking and screaming into this Live Journal thing since I seem to be out of the loop with the folks back east. How's it going for you these days?

(To be fair, I only said yes to about 1/2 of them, but what can you expect from someone who grew up (30 feet) west of the Hudson? :-}

The frightening thing are the ones where not only do you understand what they mean, you don't get why it's a joke.

Like the subway. Of course the NYC subway makes sense. It's the only subway in the world that does make sense! What are they talking about?

Like the subway. Of course the NYC subway makes sense. It's the only subway in the world that does make sense! What are they talking about?

Dude... Four competing subway lines from a hundred years ago, grafted together like Frankenstein's Metro, makes sense? Whew. For a moment, I was worried that I was starting to get too many of those questions. ;-)

Of course the NYC subway makes sense. It's the only subway in the world that does make sense! What are they talking about?

I've had a few too many friends go glassy eyed and start drooling when I show them the NYC subway map :-}. I don't understand what their problem is, but there's clearly *some* problem there.

Maybe there's a hypnotic component to it that we've got acquired immunity to? Hmmm. There's a thought; next time it happens I'll just say "You are getting sleeeeeppppyyyyy ... " :-}

How should Houston St. be pronounced?

I once called sixth avenue "Avenue of the Americas" in front of a group of NYC expatriates who immediately and deservedly shunned me.

"HOW-ston".

Heh, yeah.

You know you're really REALLY from New York City when you refer to the subway lines as the Lex, the IRT and the BMT.

When I started at the U of C, the Metra was still being called the I.C. (http://www.icrrhistorical.org/icrr.history.html)

IRT? I've read that, but never heard anyone say it, I think.

I say it. But then again, when I lived in NYC there actually was such a thing.

it still gets called the I.C. not infrequently around my workplace....

Since the student population changes so quickly, I figured I was in the last class to be infected by this. I started at Chicago in the fall of '90; does that sound about right?

for when it changed? yes, that sounds about right. but of course the population of the staff is more stable. i still call it the I.C. myself....

I was at a party with my mother once (she was a lifelong Manhattan resident) and she said Oh, I thought you said you were from New York when another party attendee revealed she lived in Queens.

She referred to places across the Hudson river (such as Albany) as being on the Jersey side.

I understand far too many of these for someone who has never lived in NYC. DC's is darn good. California's is rotten, Illinois not much better. I think they should stick to cities.

This made me roll about laughing. Hee! *giggles muchly*

...except Brooklyn is not a road trip!

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Yep, that's my city.

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Re: Yep, that's my city.

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IRT

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