wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

To clarify re subject, the New York I know and love is full of folks who are interesting and interested, helpful, polite, good-humored and yes, even cheerful!

Agree w post-Sex'n'City downturn. I have loved NYC from my first visit, and when I first saw that show, I couldn't contain my annoyance-- who were these people? Not any New Yorkers I had ever met. On my most recent long stay, SITC clones were everywhere. Still cherish genuine "only in NY" moments and interactions (sadly more rare, but definitely still there).

I have never found New Yorkers to be anything less than friendly and generous about helping a lost tourist. If you want to know the definition of RUDE come to Pennsylvania....where the people are the most crass and miserable beings in the galaxy.

df,
no, the link is for NYC.

hjs/90

discrepancy w the post is that we are (were) talking about NYC (remember?) and your link is to the census stats of the entire United States!

#99,
that's Danny Aiello's line in "Do The Right Thing"?

Get the hell out of here you sonomabitches!

hjs,

meetings throughout the morning and afternoon...

gene,
sure it's OK, if you're CRAZY

So I'm carrying on angrily and vociferously about something, I forget what, in line at the supermarket. After I'm done, I guess I looked sheepishly around, and a woman behind me in line said,

"That's OK. In this city, everyone's allowed a freakout at the supermarket once in awhile."

#91, Catharine:
I've found one thing in cities, no matter what part of the country (or what country) I find myself: If I step out feeling apprehensive and expecting rudeness, I tend to get that.
If I step out like Mary Freaking Poppins, the world tends to lay itself at my feet. I can't tell you how many cool people I met on the subways in New York. I have colleagues who met their wives on the M5 bus in the 1990's - presumably, they got on with a cheery attitude.
I'm dead serious. You reap what you sow, on the street and elsewhere.
The only real exception I can recall was a late-night trip from Brooklyn to Manhattan, with a tall, blond midwestern friend of mine, and a lot of black teenagers were really antagonistic to her. I was never treated badly by black teens, or blacks in general, and I think my dark hair and small size helped in a sense. My friend unintentionally looked like a billboard screaming: "I'm a really-really-really tall white lady with long blond hair who looks like Elizabeth Shue." I've had other blond friends who had similar problems.

David!
late day??

I remember another episode tangentially related to this topic. I remember the pride I had the first time after I had moved here when someone asked me for directions and I was able to assist.

After bragging to friends that I was a step closer to really being a NYer, they said, "No. Not until you give someone directions, realize you were wrong after you walk away, and still don't care."

Preface: I'm a transplant.

Before I moved here, I never thought New Yorkers were rude. You could ask directions and get answers. That's not rude. I never expected anyone to linger, and I was never disappointed.

The only "rude" thing I know I've said or done was to the third group of people who had stopped in the MIDDLE of the sidewalk one day. In a loud voice I said, "It's called a sideWALK, not a sideSTOP. Go back to Iowa."

I felt so much better after saying it.

It's not people from other places that are rude. I moved to New York almost 4 years ago from Texas. I work in Manhattan and commute from upstate on Metro-North. I find that the people in Manhattan and surrounding boroughs are absolutely rude. You can call it fast-paced, in a hurry, aggressive, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck! Men and women will knock you over getting off the elevator, walking down the sideway, many look at you with anger when you say "excuse me.” I find people in other parts of New York are much friendly and laid back. I've been shouted at and profane language thrown at me because the person bumped into me mainly from women. I have now started walking in the street.

Don't get me wrong New York State is a great place to live and I love it, but there are a lot of rude people here.

I don't understand discrepancy with the post but the US census site says 44.7 white

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=&geo_id=16000US3651000&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US36%7C16000US3651000&_street=&_county=new+york+city&_cityTown=new+york+city&_state=&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=160&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=ACS_2006_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=&_keyword=&_industry=

I still think of New Yorkers as some of the friendliest people I've found.
I never thought they were rude. But I had the good fortune of experiencing New York before "Sex And The City" convinced a lot of vapid, fashion-obsessed people to descend upon it.
One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of the "new" New Yorkers are part of Gen Y, and this is a huge demographic. So the size of their demographic 1) influences their behavior and 2) influences how we see their behavior.

57,76

Whites make up 57% of NYC (presumably that includes Irish, "JEWS" and Italians).

Link:
http://tinyurl.com/4mj4fo

I was upset about that woman who call in saying Boston people are rudy ! I also went college and graduite school in Boston at Harvard I did my thesis urban studios.

College kids are rudy way thier are ,I live Boston after school
people where niicer.

"How many time have heard someone say 'Minnesota? Isn't that in Wisconsin?'"

How many times has it been said that fly-overs have no sense of irony? We know where you are. We just don't want to go there. KIDDING! I'M KIDDING! I love all you beautiful Americans. You can't blame us, Midwesterners. You're the ones throwing Kansas City into Missouri, Nevada City into California and starting the Mississippi River in Minnesota. Stop confusing us and we'll start saying Please and Thank you.

How rude!

Gene
thanks i didn't. clearly i just the love the attention. otherwise i'd just change my name for every post like sommmepeople...

hjs:

New Yorkers also seem to have a tough-love, insult-oriented sense of humor; at its worst it's Gawker-type snarkiness, at its best, it can be very, very funny.

My comment may not have been particularly funny--but I am surprised you seem to have taken it seriously.

Steven, don't pay mind to her I know who she is in real life, and she is a mentally ill old women.

I agree with Libra. Outsiders like myself are the real problem, because we bring in suburban culture, things like chain restaurants and gentrification. No wonder people are rude.

Steven,
glad you're a fan :)
are u defending Marcy's lie also

hjs,

according to you every one has an agenda! you come day after day just attacking people in the comment section, the question is what is your agenda?

this a great place to express and share ideas...you need to stop with your attacks, lies and over all hatred toward any one who disagree with you.

I'm from the MIDWEST (Minneapolis), and I've been living in New York and now in Jersey for the last few years. I have had the pleasure of getting know few native New Yorkers through work, sports, and social events, and they have all had very similar characteristics to my friends back in Minneapolis.
They have all been nothing but warm and inviting to me (the outsider), and to disagree with an earlier caller, this would be the same if any New Yorker came across my door step in the Midwest.

I will say that New Yorkers and East Coasters in general don't know anything about the rest of USA, and they are very close minded in that way.
How many time have heard someone say "Minnesota? Isn't that in Wisconsin?"

I have found that NYers are more understanding in traffic than other places despite all the necessary aggression just to keep up. While in Oregon and Virginia, I wound up in a wrong lane on a highway that wound up closing due to construction, forcing me to merge into another lane. Person after person went out of their way to cut off my angle so I couldn't get in for minutes. In NY, more people seem to have "seen it all" and just shrug, yield the right-of-way, and move on.

Marcy
that's untrue! what's ur source. and ur agenda

Rude? What a myth. Everytime some moron tourist, from Stanford to Stuttgart, asks me for directions I stop and spell out polite, kind directions about how to get somewhere safely and well. And what do these "non-rude" people do? Turn their heels and *NOT* thank me. I'll take NY Nice over Minnesota Nice any day.

The latest census indicates 68%...get the latest info people.

How many million people live in this great city? 7, 8? There are simply MORE of us (native / transplant / immigrant, it doesn't matter), so there will be more friction than in a small town without public transit, but there are also more opportunities to show kindness. There are plenty of jerks here, and plenty of lovely, friendly people. In my experience, the balance tips toward the latter.

I've lived in NYC for about 8 months, and I get asked at least once per-month by a local "You're not from here, are you." - The question always follows from me doing something nice - not something heroically noble, just being a decent human. (Returning a few $bills dropped on the ground, a lost cell phone, holding the door for a parade of strollers, lifting multiple items up subway stairs).

It makes me pretty sad that being a decent person immediately labels me as an outsider.

- now living in queens, spending time in Manhattan
- grew up in western PA
- spent last 14 yrs in Indiana (decent-sized college town with large international population)

I concur with alot of what's been written. I grew up in Manhattan and lived in the Midwest for over 10 years and found the people superficially friendly but definitely with boundaries, not people you could schmooze with or unload personal stories while waiting in line at the bank. When I first came back to the city in '92 I was starved for the New York brand of "forward intimacy" and was engaging with everyone who spoke with me and seemed to get every request from lost tourists. Now, as a psychotherapist, I deal with people's problems all day and feel overloaded hearing more stories or problems so I've discovered it's body language and lack of eye contact that does discourage prattlers and privacy invaders not to speak to you. Not to say I wouldn't help anyone in distress or trouble, but there are limits! Still, so value the street culture of the city, it's vanishing so fast in this car culture country!

Lucy,
56% is overwhelmingly now? interesting

William CRUZ what IS your point?

I have looked up the demographics of the city in the last census on line and the city is overwhelmingly people of color!!!

Most New Yorkers do not fit the traditional European immigrant stereotype!

A real New Yorker would know that.

Gene 63
don't shoot the messenger

The best of all New Yorkers came out in the days following 9/11. All of us had our emotions on the outside, instead of inside where we normally keep them. We walked around in a daze. But we must remember the strength and brilliance with which we volunteered and pulled together for each other. And especially, how the media was used to act - calling out for what was needed. I will always remember thinking, 'this is what the news is for'.

Rude New Yorkers saved my friend's life.

I was riding the subway a few months ago and my friend was pushed by other passengers (rudeness, I guess) and fell in between the subway car and the platform. Almost instantly people began to work together, with three people on either side keeping the subway doors open, then two on either side of her pulling her up by the arms. They managed to pull her up out of the crack and into the car. She didn't even loose her shoes.
She was tearfully thanking everyone she could, but no one would step up and take credit, no one said 'you're welcome'. They all just continued to avoid eye contact and acted as if nothing happened.
Amazing. New Yorkers can be rude, but rudeness does not encompass the totality of the character of New Yorkers.

Most commenters here are talking as if New YOrk means just Manhattan. I think there's a BIG distinction between Manhattan people and behavior, and the boroughs. I spent the first 35 years of my life in Wisconsin and California, and now live in Long Island. I find Manhattanites fairly civil, and especially kind to tourists. BUT, Brooklynites and Long Islanders tend to be especially parochial (they haven't travelled much, and think only in terms of their little environs) and rude. But even here, there's a distinction: they're very kind to those "of their crowd", but rude in public venues. The same person down the street who knows me will run to open a door for me, but when in a car and anonymous will try to run me off the road.

#61:

How rude!

To Ashley (#24). Who has a more similar upbringing to a New Yorker? A white person who grew up in Westchester or Long Island, drove everywhere except in Manhattan, or a person who grew up in inner city Chicago and rode public transportation everywhere, had classmates and friends from a multitude of countries/backgrounds?

Yes - suburbanites ARE transplants!

some people (57 55 35) posting here don't seem to know the city very well. they should open their eyes while walking around the city.

I think #11 and #23 exemplify the negative stereotype the other 280 million people in this country have about New Yorkers.
These comments show how ignorant New Yorkers are about the other 90% of the country. The think anywhere west of Philadelphia is the Midwest (well, except maybe California), and can't be bothered to learn otherwise. Have you been to the "Midwest"? Chicago? Milwaukee? St. Louis, or even Louisville? Can you even find those places on a map? Most people of color in the US do NOT live in or around NYC - they live in the big, giant space you call the Midwest!! Your NYC suburbs where MOST of the "transplants" come from are among the whitest places I've ever seen.

Really, people are no ruder, no more intelligent, and no more saavy here than the bus riders in Seattle or L riders in Chicago. They like to think more highly of themselves, and that is the essence of the negative attitude New Yorkers bring to the table.

Re: NYers as fast walkers:

I used to consider myself a fast walker here in nyc, passing others on the street easily if I need to get somewhere fast.

Then I went to London and was amazed--so many bowlers passing me by with calm grace as if I were on a walker!

Strollers are carried all the time. I do it grudgingly because I'd LIKE to just run up the stairs and catch a train instead of help someone else, but I do it because it's right.

And New Yorkers LOVE to give directions. People in another part of a subway car will come over and put their two cents in. One person is asked, and 6 answer and the person is so overwhelmed that as soon as they get off the train, you know they are going to ask someone else anyway.

Most New Yorkers are people of color, but the stereotype is the city is mostly composed of Irish, JEWS and the Italians...the City is every thing but!

A recent interaction on the train, travelling from Harlem to midtown:

I noticed an elderly gentleman on a crowded train and offered him my seat (I am a female). He replied: "Tough guys don't take seats from ladies, even in their broken-down years."

What a sweetie - I wanted to hug him!

meet me outside of Barnes and Noble Union Sq and see how many people walk in without carry who they knockover to get in,,,people are in there own lil worlds and are afraid (paranoid?) to let down their guards so they are knee jerk rude...to show how tuff they are...do not tell me that NYers (not people that grew up here but tranplants that love the idea of being a NYer) are not unthinking and cold...i am from Boston and the last trip home a Biker came into Dunkin Donuts and asked evertone if they had been served first before he gave his order....THAT would never happen here..

One thing I have noticed in every city is that people may be polite in person, but drivers are generally rude everywhere.

Outsiders, is the term. But we are more welcoming.

Allow me to preface this with the fact that I love New York and have lived here happily for a couple of years. That being said, I am not a native hailing originally from the Midwest. Whenever I hear a discussion such as this, it clangs against my ears a bit as an import. Just so you know, one of the reasons much of the rest of the country sometimes resents New York is self-congratulatory discussions such as this. New York is great, it's true...but I think y'all are going to dislocate a shoulder patting yourselves on the back.

As for the lack of intimacy in Chicago, when I moved to the Rogers Park neighborhood on Chicago's far North Side, I was moving into a 3rd floor walkup. Not only did people I'd only met five minutes before help me carry a sofa sleeper up three flights of stairs...my neighbors were also concerned that my roommates and I had no food...so they came over a few hours later with plates and plates of food! There are good people everywhere...

Classic New York: Helping someone with a stroller down the stairs in a subway station. This is what helps me keep my faith in the goodness of man.

Because of this "familiarity" there is a unique sense of security that NY offers (at all hours). I live in VA now, the Shenandoah Valley. I feel safer on a street in NY at 2am than I do on a small town in VA. With this security, people are more apt to "be themselves" in the open, too--freer. There is a freedom that we can take refuge in in NY.

I once heard somewhere: In DC everyone thinks they are somebody. In NY everyone knows they are nobody.

No, the south is the hypocrite capital of the world.

So many New Yorkers are from elsewhere....bringing their smaller-community/city friendliness and courtesy with them.

I'm a native New Yorker, and I agree that NYC transplants often bring a bad attitude with them. I think its because they think it will keep them safer. However, one thing I've noticed in my travels is that New Yorkers are better at what my friend calls "drop in-drop out" friendliness. Whenever I talk casually to people on the street or in a restaurant in California or the Midwest I find I can't shake them after. I like the fact that in NY I can reach out and do something like ask someone at the next table what they ordered, and then we ignore each other. Or the other day, on the train I gave a guy a bandaid for a paper cut, and we barely exchanged a word. For some reason I think this is more civil and easy - in Ohio and California where I visit pretty frequently I lose my privacy after I do something like that. On the other hand a friend of mind who is in NY from California hates this aspect of public interaction.

The thing that unites New Yorkers is that it is a culture of complaint. Complaining can break down nearly any barrier between people. The subway, the bus, traffic, anything can set this off.

Also, all New York women can have a conversation about 2 things: hair and how difficult it is to find comfortable boots. I have had at least 20 conversations about this on the subway.

NYers aren't rude. They're real. And that's wonderful and refreshing compared to many other large cities around the country where one can never be sure about the local's sincerity.

NJ towns the smaller the better

I was coming out of the food emporium in Union Square. Was exiting while putting my change away and dropped a dime behind an old lady with a cane moving really slow who I rushed by as I left. I went to retrieve the dime thinking she was a cranky old lady who has going to claim it was her dime or she wasn't going to move. Much to my surprise, she used her cane and push the dime towards me. She looked up, smiled, lifted her cane, and said "comes in handy sometimes". I thanked her and walked to the subway.

I disagree with this guest, the present flow of transplant do not bring any of the creativity and ambition as in the past, I'm in the theater world and the talent that comes from the transplant community is not of the caliber that it use to be.

I loved the Boston comment...it's so true!! And I'm a transplant from Massachusetts!!

I love it here...when I first moved here I lived alone...but I was never alone...just going to the market on the corner 7 people ask me how I am, what am I doing, where am I going...

My partner and I tried to move elsewhere...and not only were we bored everywhere else...we were seen as too forward, too open...

Thank God for NYC!!

I moved to New York from Pittsburgh (nice people) two years ago, and I have not found New Yorkers to be "rude" per say. What I think is mistaken for rudeness is simple a large number of people needing to be somewhere else. That is it. I don't push through the crowd gathered around the Hard Rock in Times Square every evening because I am rude, I am just trying to get to the Shuttle. Our time is of such value to us -- needing to get to work, have to get to dinner, want to get home to just relax -- then the focus becomes Where you are going rather than Who should I let cross in front of me. As has been mentioned on air as well as in these comments, I have seen countless acts of kindness with people lending a hand, offering directions, a smile, etc.

I am obese and constantly run into nasty NYers calling me a fat ass, being rude if I sit on the subway or walk down the street and I am constantly harassed for being fat.

RACIALLY

ARE ALL NEW YORKERS EQUALLY POLITE OR RUDE?

I started living in Manhattan in 1997 and NEVER experienced rudeness from people. Since day one everyone was helpful and kind. This got only better after 9/11. HOWEVER, I have noticed that as Manhattan gentrifies people get more rude, less helpful. I believe is a result of the wealth of the new comers, who did not experience the "if you can make it there" New York...

When people are visiting from out of town I always tell them that if they get lost while walking around NYC just ask someone for directions.. "New Yorkers love to tell you where to go".

bull...I am the only 1 I ever saw carry a stroller for a stranger...u are dillusional

new York is so hard that if people are going to deal with you they will be sincerely nice. In other cities it is look but don't touch.

Boston it is who your family or university is. Seattle is a bunch of bedroom communities with a thin communal urban veneer. San Francisico and LA are all head tripos. New York is the only European type city.

after living in seattle, austin, boston and new york, i think that the almost overwhelming mix of cultures and languages... mixing better here than anywhere else i've seen... makes it imperative to communicate as directly and succinctly as we can.

politeness is not read the same way everywhere you go.

Born n raised New Yorker. Let's stop the denial, compared to people in other parts of the country, NY ers can be incredibly harsh or rude. I attribute it to the competion for money, space, quiet and everything else. Let's not forget anonmymity, less social accountability.

this show is embarrassing...

Having lived here all my 54 years, and having lived in the same apartment for the last 34 years, i notice that the people I have known all this time are normal polite neighbors.
With all the construction on the east side, there is no way all these people are from here.
I firmly belive that "thats how it is done in NY" is an excuse for these peolpes lack of manners. This is especially true on the east side, where everyone tinks they are god's gift to the world and everyone else needs to get out of thier way.

Most New Yorkers are in hurry to get somewhere! Politically, socially and economically, however, I have found most New Yorkers are friendly, but self-involved so they may not always be looking to make friends. The city is their living room.

The mores of NY are different than other places. When passing someone on the street in most smaller cities and towns, you're expected to catch their eye, nod and say "good morning".... In NYC, looking someone in the eye or speaking to a complete stranger can sometimes be threatening. When visitors come to NYC, they see this failure to greet strangers as arrogant/rude. It makes for a good story when they get back home... much like New Yorker's glee in recounting the rudness of Paris waiters.

When I first moved here, people would say "You're Not from here are you?" and I would ask why they said that and they said "because you're smiling."

Recently I was walking down the sidewalk after a long day at work and I saw my face in a window, and I said "wow, I have angry New Yorker Face on." That's when I new I was a New Yorker

I find that as a New yorker, we're not Rude but IMPATIENT, FRANK and BLUNT. We tend to tell the truth and keep it honest.

the only place ruder is Virginia...

Question rather than a comment:

Does growing up in a NYC suburb (NJ/LI/Westchester) count as being a transplant? ALways wondered about htis.

In the past Transplants have been a great source of creativity for the city but today the new arrival especially from the Midwest, who are mostly here to have a good time...and forget that this is a home, and they tend to be a bit more bigoted they tend to come from areas were it is predominantly of Caucasian persuasion and tend to have more of an attitude toward people of color!

Yes, excellent, familiar is what we are. Some may find that rude but I guess we don't think of it that way because we just do it that way.

I lived in Boston for 12 years: Bostonians are rude, cold, indifferent, distant, obnoxious.

New Yorkers are brusque, direct, candid, honest, forthright -- and friendly, helpful, great.

I'm a member of the much-maligned group of "transplants," and I have found New York to be one of the friendliest places I've ever been! I think it's dangerous to say who's rude and who isn't, because that breeds more unfriendliness.

Of course, polite New Yorkers ain't, but politeness is different than friendliness!

i could write a lot about subway etiquette but i'm have a bad morning

Often times I feel like Nick Carraway (in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby):

"It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road."

'How do you get to West Egg village?' he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood."

To me that's a real New Yorker, polite and helpful. These Carrie Bradshaw wannabes, theyunnies (as sevans explained it) are the rude ones.

Gawking -- the New Rudeness

Here's an example of "The New Rudeness": staring at celebrities -- or even fetish-izing the idea of "celebrities" as they have traditionally been peddled among podunk towns and posers by jaded NY editors.

Now there's even a website (gawker stalker) where you can pinpoint where celebrities are. The opposite of what is great about NYork. But I must admit it's become a fabulous mall to live in

Commuting on the subway and busses does bring out rudeness is all of us. I take 3 subways finally landing in Grand Central Station and am always confronted with people who must walk directly in front me in their rush to get someplace. All of our commutes via mass transit are harried and crowded and kind of awful. Yesterday I watched a woman rushing to circumvent people in front of her on the sidewalk force someone coming in the other direction to stop and veer out of her path to avoid being pushed aside. After she rushed past the man who'd forced himself to get out of her way turned around several times to look at her in the vain hope that she would make any kind of acknowledgement of what she'd done, but she just kept going without any word of apology. I've been pushed to the ground by a woman behind me shoving me while I was climbing bus steps. I have a very large male friend who has had 2 different instances of smaller people shoving and punching him from behind on the subway instead of saying anything such as a request for him to get out of the way. It's not all sweetness and light here in Disneyland NYC.

The rudest types are not the Manhattanites but the commuters who arrive at Penn Station and Grand Central every day and don't know how to behave in crowded spaces. They're much more inclined to throw elbows on the subway and not observe rules of public space.

Hey now, not ALL transplants are evil soulless vampires determined to suck the life out of this city! I moved here with no illusions of Sex and the City glamor, I'm not bent on gentrifying trendy neighborhoods, and I do things like hold doors for old ladies and say 'excuse me'. Coming from the smile-to-your-face-and-stab-you-in-the-back small town South, I love New Yorkers for their bluntness.

As someone who's lived here for 11 years but raised in Michigan, I can say that many people are somewhat ruder here than most other parts of the country. No question. But the great thing about NY is you can tune those people out and construct your own circle of friends and associates who aren't so rude.

Sevans #6 & Manuel #9
Your comments put together spell out the story 100%. Beautifully put.

I was born, raised and lived here for over 60 years and the only rude "New Yorkers" I've ever met were not from NYC originally but rather people who moved here from the Mid-West with the idea that you have to be rude in NYC because they had the false impression that NYers are rude. New Yorkers are always in a rush and often snippy but not rude. We are tense from the hustle and bustle of the city rushing here and there and so give the impression of rudeness but we are NOT rude (of course there are exceptions and exceptional times for even the nicest people but that's not what we're touching on here.)
So you who come here drop the attitude and get with the program or stay home!

What appears to many visitors to be rudeness or aloofness is in fact the New Yorker quest for personal space. For instance, I know I put up an invisible but palpable screen to get some P & Q on the train, but should anybody ask for help, I'm very happy to oblige.
We just don't travel in car-bubbles here. We gotta do something for privacy.

First we have to parcel by what do you mean by "New Yorker"! Native New Yorker, Transplant New Yorker, or immigrant New Yorker...Native New Yorker continues to bring a great almost startling realism, but wonderful energy to them and you them when you meet them, then there are the immigrant New Yorker who keep the city ever evolving and adding to the greaness of the city, but unlike the past the transplanst have not kept of there part, they are more like long term tourist who shop and catch a show but have no substance to them.

Although the city has come along way in improving much of the city's infrastructure, it has lost something genuine, and only the superficial veneer is left in it's place which the transplants have embraced as genuine!

I agree with #5, the city has becoming more and more an adult version of Disney land, for Transplants from the rest of the country, who do not bring anything to the city except a wearied projection of what New York City is in there stereotyping mind. The City has lost it's naturally organic Bohemianess that made this city so edgy and creative.

I pretty much concur with 1-4 in this post. We native NYers are polite. It's the newcomers, namely the yunnies(young urban narcissists), yuppies(of course), and the ultra-rich white condo-owning elitists that are rude. They need to borrow your identity from the outside world (like body snatchers) and they feel alienated and anxious looking at a prospective home stripped bare of other people's selves. It only reflects the narcissist in them, the internal sense of terrifying emptiness. The giant condo complexes they live in offer round-the-clock services and gratify their infantile needs.

They feel empty and express their aggression through oral rage, shopping compulsively and consuming aggressively.
- They are grandiose and believe the world revolves around them.
- They demand constant attention--shouting into cell phones and making dramatic scenes is a favorite way to draw attention to themselves.
- Their hidden, deep belief in their own worthlessness makes you strive for high-status jobs and condo lifestyles, where a false sense of power temporarily lifts them up.
- At the extreme end, they are sociopathic, without conscience and without remorse--these are the most dangerous and the fastest growing subgroup in the city. Welcome to the new NYC; this ain't Kansas anymore.

The real issue is not between New Yorkers and the rest of the country but actually between Native New Yorkers and the Transplants (wanabee New Yorkers)!!!

My parents brought me to live in NYC in 1975, I moved to Westchester in 2005. I agree with the 1st comment in that over the years it seems that all of the adults without children who move here from other parts of the country seem to act like the movie version of New Yorkers. Aside from incidents of racism, I have always found native New Yorkers to be as attitude free as people in my native country St. Kitts. Some time ago two guests on the station who wrote some guide to the City, and who moved to the City as young adults exhibited this same fake New Yorker edginess. They even disparaged every place that was not Manhattan or Brooklyn as not worthy of their guidebook.

you mean like pseudosnarky like gawker commenters? cuz in real life these banana republic nerds are anything but.

of course that's not counting the babooshkas at Fairway after 10 pm, there for the half price bagels.

and their rudeness, friends, is to be misunderstood at your peril.

Rude? New Yorkers? You gotta be kidding. We're just suffer no fools. How many times has someone stopped me for directions and then asked me if I'm sure (about the directions)? When that happens, I say one or more of following three things:
1 - I'm not the one who's lost, buddy.
2 - Why don't you go get a second opinion?
3 - Why ask anyone if you're not going to trust their answer?

That is, IF I stop. I DO stop and help people when I have time, very willingly, and have even accompanied particularly dimwitted people to their destination if it's within range of my own vector. What some non New Yorkers don't seem to understand is that when they see a New Yorker with their hands full, literally, or running to work at rush hour, they should get out of the way, and not try to stop them to ask questions of them. I've literally had to say, "Ask someone else" as I ran past these gape-mouthed, dumbfounded (thinking OMG, why isn't she stopping for me? new yorkers are so rude!) people, and wondered why tourists ask someone who's obviously busy? It's a lack of common sense and alertness that annoys a New Yorker. We're all trying to survive here, and flounderers can just depress us or drag us down.

Why are non New Yorkers so foolish, is what I'd like to know! Snap out of it, non New Yorkers!

New Yorkers aren't even from New York anymore, so we locals cannot be blamed for rudeness. These newcomers are bringing it with them.