You Know It's Summer in New York City When ...

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New York's Favorite Noise Polluter

Griping about the weather is one of the great New York City pastimes.  It’s right up there with jaywalking, making fun of tourists and trying to walk faster than anyone else who is using the same sidewalk.  It’s not that we’re wimps … well, okay, we are wimps.  This is because most of us don’t drive cars, which means that we can’t just hop from the kitchen to the garage and into an automobile.  We have to be out in whatever Earth’s atmosphere is throwing at us, unless we want to stay holed up at home.

New York City’s summers are legendary.  Because the temperature rarely gets above the mid-90s, those of you who live in places where summer means 100 degrees in the shade are probably asking, “What’s the big deal?”  I can answer this in one word:

Humidity.

New Yorkers spend a typical summer day awash in water:  once or twice in the shower at home and every time they step outside.  Humidity also has the ability to make 90 degrees feel like 100, at the same time it is pulling every drop of moisture from your body and soaking your clothes in sweat.

That said, here is how you know it’s summer here:

1.  You can feel the heat from the pavement through your shoes.  New Yorkers know better than to wear flip-flops on the street in July.  Those things could melt and take your feet with them.

2.  Underground subway stops become makeshift Turkish baths, especially the Times Square stop on the west side IRT line.  The only difference between it and a real Turkish bath is that the people on the subway platform have their clothes on.

3.  You avoid getting on an almost empty subway car with plenty of available seats because you know the reason it is almost empty is that the air-conditioning isn’t working in there.

4.  Your hair, which looked perfect when you left your apartment, becomes limp and droopy after five minutes outside.

5.  The Mr. Softee Ice Cream Truck Song, a/k/a The World’s Most Maddening Earworm, gets more play on the street than your favorite song gets on your iPod.

6.  It doesn’t really cool off at night, unless there’s a thunderstorm or something, and even then it doesn’t cool off very much.  You know you shouldn’t be running your air conditioning in a thunderstorm, but you are willing to risk death to be comfortable.

I love summer, but, as a true New Yorker, I have to complain about it.  It wouldn’t be right to go against tradition.

Life in New York: Snarky Letter to New York City Transit

NOTE:  This is a real letter that I actually wrote and mailed to the New York City MTA.  Yes, I had the nerve to do this!

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Rear End of Standing New York Subway Rider Facing Sitting
Passenger Taking This Picture

May 21, 2016

MTA New York City Transit
(NAME OF PERSON)
President
2 Broadway
New York, NY 10004

Dear (NAME OF PERSON):

First, let me say that I have been riding the New York City subways for many years, and I usually manage to get from one place to another without anything more than the usual aggravations, such as no available seats, squealy brakes and baby carriages in the doorways.

This afternoon was another story.  Trying to get around the city on a weekend can be an adventure.  My trip this afternoon was a prime example.  Unfortunately, this was one transportation adventure that I would have preferred not to have on a Saturday afternoon or any other time.

Under ordinary circumstances, a trip from the AMC Loews theater on 68^th Street to my home in The Bronx involves nothing more than getting on an IRT No. 1 train and staying on it until I get to 231^st Street.  This afternoon, the last stop on that train was 137^th Street, and we all had to get off and wait for a shuttle bus.

When the shuttle buses came – two of them, one right after another – I found out that they only went as far as 168^th Street.  I asked one of the TA employees who were there how to get to 231^st Street, and was told that I would have to get off the bus at 168^th Street, take an A train to 207^th Street, then take another bus the rest of the way.

If you have been following this, you realize that this meant taking two (2) trains and two (2) really slow buses for a trip that should only be a short jaunt on the IRT No. 1.

The thought of going through all that just to take what should be an easy trip made this senior citizen go, “ACK!”  I decided, instead, to take the shuttle bus to 168^th Street, then take an Uber car home from there.  I have attached the receipt that Uber emailed to me.  Taking the Uber increased the cost of my trip by $17.25 plus the tip I gave to the driver.  (Insert angry emoticon here.)

I realize that it is necessary to do repair work on our train tracks and in the stations, and that it is better to do as much of that as possible on weekends, to avoid causing problems for people who ride the trains to work.  I also realize that this means occasional disruptions in weekend service.

Today’s situation, however, was ridiculous.

I suggest that the next time the TA has to do extensive track work on the IRT No. 1 on a weekend, that you at least provide shuttle bus service all the way to the Van Cortlandt Park stop at 242^nd Street, which is the last stop on the No. 1 train.  That is not ideal, but it’s better than having to take 2 trains and 2 buses to get from Lincoln Center to The Bronx.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kathy Minicozzi

Life in New York City

Language

The official language of New York is English, but you’d never know it.  Spanish is everywhere, even in subway advertisements.  (I pick up a lot of Spanish from reading ads on boring subway rides.)  We also hear Cantonese, Korean, Arabic, German, Japanese, Wolof and just about any other language that is spoken anywhere by more than 10 people.  Was that Maori that I heard those two people speaking on the bus the other day?  I don’t know.  The next time I meet a Maori speaker, I’ll ask.

The “F” word gets dropped a lot here.  True, it is not unknown in other places.  The difference is that we hear it so much we’re used to it.  It’s background noise.  It is a versatile word, which can be used to express:

Anger (“I’m talkin’ to YOU, F***face!”)

Frustration (“Oh f***!  Not again!”)

Surprise (“What the f*** was that?!”)

Fear (“Let’s get the f*** out of here!”)

Disgust (“Ack!  F*****g gross!”)

Admiration (“He is so f*****g gorgeous!”)

Sometimes people substitute other words, like “freaking” or “bleeping” for you-know-what, but everybody knows what the speaker would say if he/she were not so embarrassed.

                                                                                                           

The “S” word gets bandied about a lot, too, but it doesn’t pack quite the same punch.

Aside from four-letter words, the English language as spoken in New York City contains many expressions.

Forget about it! is a common expression, not only here but also in New Jersey.  It’s hard to tell who started it; it was probably the local Italians, since they like to say this.  It is usually pronounced as one word:  fuhgeddaboudit!  Like that other word that begins with an f, this one has more than one usage:

Emphasis (“Is he dumb or what?”  “Yeah!  Fuhgeddaboudit!”)

Exaggeration (“Talk about huge!  Ooh, fuhgeddaboudit!”)

Put-Down (“What, that piece of junk?  Fuhgeddaboudit!”)

Literal Meaning (“Don’t even think about it.  Fuhgeddaboudit!”)

New Yorkers are just now getting used to calling hero sandwiches “subs,” but mostly in the local Subway shop.  They have not, and probably never will, call them “submarine sandwiches.”  The same long sandwich, when bought at a delicatessen or an Italian sandwich shop, is still a hero.  The long piece of bread which encloses these staples of the local diet is also called a hero, as in, “I’ll have a pastrami on a hero, hold the mayo.”  No, they are not talking about Superman.  They are talking about bread.

Don’t ever call a hero sandwich a “hoagie” or a “poor boy.”  People have died for less.

The Yiddish language has given us a number of words that say, in one word, what it takes other languages whole phrases to say.

That guy that nobody likes because he’s a real jerk is a putz.

A person who complains all the time about everything is a kvetch.

When you have to carry something awkward around all over the place, you are schlepping it.

A nosy, gossiping woman is a Yenta.

When something gets you so happily excited and/or nervous that you almost want to faint, you are verklempt.  In German, that same word means “inhibited.”  Knowing the Germans, I’m not surprised.

A person with a lot of nerve and either the courage or stupidity not to care about little things like consequences has chutzpah.

Spanish words are slowly making their way into the local slang, but they have not yet reached the heights of the Yiddish ones.  A man who has a lot of courage will sometimes be described as having cojones, and you might hear an exclamation such as caramba! from a non-Latino mouth once in a while.  Spanish words will need a little more time to become fully entrenched in the local lexicon.

Oh, and if you want to hear some real, traditional New York accents, you have to travel to Brooklyn, Queens or The Bronx.  Manhattanites, who consider a trip to “The Boroughs” equivalent to slumming, are more likely to sound like the rest of the country when they talk.  They would NEVER say “Toity-Toid and Toid” instead of “Thirty-Third and Third,” so don’t even THINK of trying to get one of them to do it.

Life in New York City

New York has a bad reputation, much of it undeserved.  In movies, television and newspapers New York is always dirty, crime-filled, blight-ridden and dangerous.  (“There are 8 million stories in The Naked City … .”?  Talk about lousy public relations!)  Actually, it’s a nice place to live, if you don’t mind the expense.  We pay for the privilege of living here – a lot.  But, in spite of what you see on Law and Order, we don’t stumble over gruesome murder victims every time we step outside.  Most of us never see a murder victim even once in our entire lives.  Really.  It’s true.

I have lived here for over thirty years.  Most of that time I lived in Brooklyn.  For the last several years The Bronx has been my home.  I only lived in Manhattan for a couple of months, but I’ve been working there for over 30 years, not to mention all the performances I have sung and attended there and all the friends I have who live there.  I know Manhattan better than I know either Brooklyn or The Bronx, which is very New Yorker of me.

The Weather

New Yorkers will get through a hurricane, a Nor’easter or a giant blizzard with great courage and fortitude.  High winds?  Flooding?  A week of blackouts?  Fuhgeddaboudit!  On the other hand, a little bit of rain or slush turns us into a bunch of grumbling sissies.

The reason is that most New Yorkers don’t have cars.  A car is a lot of trouble here, and we have good public transportation almost everywhere, except on Staten Island.* People in other parts of this country can step out of their houses on a crummy day and right into the car.  Most New Yorkers step outside into the weather and walk in it.  Sometimes we have to stand in it.  The curbs soon become littered with broken umbrellas that have been tossed aside and left to die alone and abandoned.  Very few of today’s umbrellas can survive the combination of bad weather and the anger of a New Yorker caught in the rain, especially if there is a high wind at the same time.  In that case, all bets are off and it’s every man for himself, women and children included.

It’s a good thing that it doesn’t snow as often here as it does Upstate or in New England.  Snow in New York City is pretty for about five minutes before it turns into Super Slush.  If there is any way to get inside your boots, Super Slush will find it.  Super Slush congregates in massive piles on street corners, turning getting across the street into a Herculean task.  Attempting a broad jump over the mess is likely to land you smack in it, surrounded by strangers, some of whom will want to kill you because you splattered dirty slush on them and the rest of whom might help you up after they get through laughing like hyenas or catching you on video.

The irony is that this city is in a protected little pocket and, aside from our legendary hot, humid summers, our normal weather is pretty mild, considering.  New Jersey, Upstate New York, Long Island and New England get hit with crazy weather a lot more than we do.  We complain anyway, because that’s what we do.

* Staten Island is like a separate country, which suits Staten Islanders just fine.  They don’t really believe that they are part of New York City, and they show it by making it hard for anyone who doesn’t live there to get there.