Day One: The differences between arriving into a “vacation city” and arriving into a city you intend to call “home” are vast. For those of you who wish to start your next move with optimism and a feeling of general comfort (as opposed to the crushing oblivion of insignificance or a feeling of intense inferiority), it would be better that you not look out the window of your 747 as it lands. Nor should you chat up the baggage handler in Baggage Claim because he will without a doubt, cryptically wish you: “good luck” and then laugh as he walks away.
No, to arrive into a city, such as The Big Apple one must pretend that you already belong there, thereby establishing a no-nonsense relationship with your: taxi-driver, hotel clerk and Subway ticket machine. It is the only way to survive.
Day Two: It is always a good idea to wonder about a city when one first arrives. Getting lost is generally the most efficient way of finding the city’s best kept nooks and secrets. However, a word of caution about getting lost: it is equally important to note from whence you originate as noting where you end up. By memorizing these things you save yourself the experience of terminating your day leaning heavily on a subway wall and feeling slightly ill from the terrible pretzel you bought at a street corner earlier. (A corner you would be certain to avoid in the future if only you could remember which corner it was exactly). You might also spare yourself the tragedy of wearing spectacular grease stains on the front of your coat, souvenirs from eating at the best Pizzeria in Manhattan (where they make New York pizza folding an art); alas if only you knew which train or wandering path you took to get to that pizza!
Day Three: A city is only as good as it’s transit system they say. Therefore be sure you do some serious research before moving onto a specific train line in a borough. If you don’t you could find yourself living on the L-train for example. This really is not a bad train, except it is simply a shuttle. There is no way to get to Upper Queens or Lower Brooklyn without circling over into the city and without braving the buses. And then there are the weekends there is track work: 3-4 weekends a month and sometimes nights the train will simply not run. Then what do you do? Did you know that the 7-train crosses through more than 67 languages as it makes its way from Downtown to Upper Queens? However, it also runs with less consistency than any other train in Manhattan. Furthermore, the J and the C-trains have higher crime and stabbings rates than any other city trains combined and the M-train only acts as a shuttle on weekends. As you can tell: if a city is only as good as it’s transit system; there is a lot to learn about transit.
Day Four: If one really wants to be a New Yorker one must act exasperated and aloof from all holidays. July 4th, Memorial Day, and Labor Day are times when real New Yorkers stay at home. They avoid the crowds by drinking in the comfort of their own air-conditioned flats. One must display the proper sentiment of disgust when speaking with acquaintances of “those people” who cram onto the LIRR heading to Long Beach, or “those people” who travel to the Hamptons for a single day. A real New Yorker would never brave the crowds to see such a touristy thing as fire-works or find themselves spending two hours in a cramped Coney-Island bound subway. New Yorkers know that on Coney Island the only things which can possibly happen to you are: A. being shat on by pigeons and B.ending up in/taking some tourist’s photos. But above all, a true New Yorker knows not to go out on Puerto Rican Day. One of the most celebrated days of the year in the city it includes: parades of low-riding and streamered cars, blarring salsa music and half-dressed people scampering about waving national flags. For once Seinfeld had it right, if American’s celebrated independence Day the way Puerto Rican’s celebrate Puerto Rican Day, there would be a lot more patriotism in the country.
Day five: If one is not careful one can easily label oneself as a “blow-in” simply by the way you walk. Do you stride briskly forward? Or worse, do you walk slowly, causally, your steps reveling your dazed state at being in such an immense city? That is quite simply a mistake; no New Yorker strides or meanders. This would never do considering the amount of ground they may cover any given day. No, New Yorker’s do not rush. They do not appear to be in a hurry to get somewhere, they simply get there quickly leaving the rest of the world wondering how they did it. Further more, as a female one must learn to function in heels. You must learn to treat them as if they were mere trifles, not potentially lethal weapons attached to the bottoms of your aching feet.
For example: As a Blow-In you will puff your way up three flights of steps and across the 14th street pathway only to arrive at the platform as the doors snap shut on your Uptown-3 Express. As a Rookie you may have the urge to dejectedly watch the train pull out of the station without you on it. Then you will curse at the inconvenience and injustice of it all and spin about in a futile circle looking for someone to commiserate with. (At this moment it is advisable to note that New Yorker’s never commiserate. Commiseration requires eye contact, a thing which is to be limited at all costs. Along a similar vein excess movement, including futile circles only draws attention to oneself and illustrates how woefully incapable one is of dealing with the city’s challenges.)
Approximately a quarter way through your futile spin you will notice a woman at your three o’clock. She will be stoically thickening her eye liner to the point where it seems she could rival Cleopatra. You will stare at her (completely disregarding the canon rules about eye contact and invisibility), and it will her alright, the woman you shoved past back at that first set of stairs on the 6th Avenue stop. Now here she is standing next to you, apparently having arrived only seconds after you without puffing, cursing or turning in circles. And she is in heels. How did she do it? One of your greatest fears about this city should be that you will never know the answer to that question and thus will never be apart of the New York elite.
Day Six: You must always notice all facets of the city subtly. The truth is everyone enjoys staring in this city. Seriously, everyone loves gawking, (never opened-mouthed mind you for fear a pigeon will drop something unpleasant into the mouth), but looking intently, unabashedly at the historic skyscrapers, at the homeless man with no legs and huge open-gauges on his arms, at the monochromatic graffiti on the inside of the Subway walls, at the Europeans gesticulating ferociously over their neon city-maps (you can tell they are European by the excess amount of pockets in their suave, black coats) and at the make-shift mariachi band playing down the subway car or on the street corner.
However, this is just not acceptable on a daily basis. As a New Yorker as previously noted with national holidays, one has the duty of being aloof. It is one’s job to seemingly ignore the breathtaking blue and gold ribbed ceiling of Grand Central Station. It is one’s obligation to resist the temptation to halt and stand mooning up at the architecture around you, temporarily mesmerized by the history playing out in your head.
It is entirely unacceptable for one to pause outside the New York Public Reference Library every time you pass in order to pay homage to such grandiose marble and to the lions. Rather as a New Yorker you are obliged to scurry past seemingly unimpressed by the impregnable fortress. This is your everyday life now, living in “the greatest city in the world”, it does not go well to stare.
Day Seven: New York post cards are for tourists. While it is entirely acceptable to pick out a tacky card , then write something clever on the front in Sharpy and send it off to a friend. It is not alright to find a card featuring a bird’s eye view of the Empire State Building then purchase it for yourself as a souvenir-cramming it into your purse and pretending it was for a friend in the first place will not hide the deed you have just done from yourself or the Indian store-owner. You live in the city with that historic building. You do not need to buy a post-card to prove that you have seen it; walk down the street and look at it. A word of caution: be careful to keep a good distance away as more people have committed suicide by jumping from that building than any other building in the world. (Don’t worry the majority of them were in the 20s)
Day Eight: Always keep in mind that you are now in New York City now. Seeing Johnathan Deans of Spiderman: Turn Off theDark or sitting across from Mary Poppins lead, Asheley Brown is a routine thing. It is not appropriate New York behavior to oogle at the stars you see. They are trying to have a normal everyday life too. When you look at them and say something along the lines of “You’re so-and-so. It is very nice to meet you!” in a slightly higher pitched voice than is socially acceptable, not only draws unwanted attention to the star (if they were previously incognito), but also shortens your moment of glory being next to them, as they will inevitably move away from the rude person drawing attention to them.
Day Nine: When acclimating to the area it is important to assimilate to the customs around you. It could be as small a thing as observing the silence within the train car, complete but for the repetitive recorded announcer or the cannon of holding yourself at least one foot away from other people at all times (thus ensuring isolation of personal space, even at crowded street corners and at rush-hour).
However, one thing which is appropriate to assimilate into is the Bystander Effect. If for example someone gets sick on your train it is your job as the recent arrival to call the train’s conductor for help and to make sure that assistance comes to fruition. Otherwise the person may simply go on being sick or injured without anyone mentioning their illness because you, like everyone around you has assumed that someone else on that crowded subway has already taken care of the issue. This general lack of interest in assisting others does not come because New Yorkers are a cruel race of citizens, but rather from the desire keep a nonchalant profile.
Please note that the Bystander Law does not overlap into direction-giving. If you so much as look lost at least three New Yorkers will clamber to give you instructions to your destination before you even have time to pull out a map. Giving directions is a mark of possession in this city, like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant: direction giving says I know my way around and I belong here”. It is a form of self-validation, hidden inside a good deed.
Day Ten: It takes six months to decide if you hate or love the city. If you hate it there is no alternative, you must immediately vacate the vicinity and not squander any more time there. If however, you fall in love with the city then know that the love will last forever. Small spheres of people will begin to be recognizable in your everyday life, the friendly lady at the Trader Joe’s checkout, the man in the plaid suit who is always on your 10am train, the old woman next-door who comes out at exactly 11am each morning to clip fresh flowers in her garden…Over time these small intricacies will be what makes the city yours. Even if you never find a way to: walk quickly in heels, visit touristy sites as a local, or eat folded New York Pizza correctly, as the new New Yorker you will still begin to belong. Integrations is part of what makes this city so wonderful-because really, in what other place is everyone so desperate that they are willing to make friends with anyone over the smallest bond?
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