The New York Times has a continuing public forum titled "You Know You’re a New Yorker When…"

I've kept a collection of the ones that really tickled me, and offer them for your amusement:

1. You order your Chinese food through bullet-proof glass.

2. When you get angry at people for not walking fast enough.

3. When you understand this: "Jeet yet?" "No, jew?"

4. You reach middle age never having owned an automobile.

5. How many people outside of the 'City' know what a 'Regular' coffee is?

6. Every other phone book looks like a magazine.

7. When your greatest wish is to have an apartment with its own washer and dryer. And when you finally get that apartment, the washer and dryer are the first thing you show to everybody that comes over to visit.

8. You’re a Hindu and start talking Yiddish: “Why that son of a Nafkeh! That no-good chamoole's tokhes! May he receive hot borsht cristiyahs and live on pishechtz and dreck! Kuck im on!”

9. When you walk past the Black Rock on 6th and wonder how long it's been since Moondog left the scene.

10. When you stand 2 lanes into traffic waiting to cross the street.

11. You can not only take a catnap on the subway while sitting, but can manage to fit one in and stay standing while hanging onto the bar.

12. When you walk into a crack-house and it reminds you of your first NY apartment building.

13. You know you're a New Yorker when the "shortest time span known to man" is the time between the light turns green and the guy behind you honks his horn.

14. When watching “Deliverance” reminds you of that time you went to New Jersey.

15. You're sure that the kids on the subway selling $1.00 M&M's for their "basketball team" are totally scamming you, but you think that paying $225,000 for a 400-sq.-ft. studio is a good deal.

16. You consider taking a cab because you don't want to lose your parking spot.

17. You discover that NYC sells over 3,500 telescopes a year. Of course, we haven't seen a star in the sky since the blackout of 1977 but that doesn't matter since the telescopes never point higher than the top window of the building across the street from their owners. By the way, Winona Ryder never closes her blinds. (just kidding)

18. You Know You're a New Yorker When... you're standing nose-to-nose with someone on the subway & yet you're not looking at each other.

19. ...when the most important utensil in your kitchen is the phone

20. You know your a new yorker when.... 1. You say the "city" when you mean Manhattan and expect everyone to know what it means. 2. Hookers and the homeless are invisible. 3. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you muliligual. 4.You think $7.00 to cross a bridge is a fair price to be charged without a gun held to your head. 5. You've considered stabbing someone just for saying "The Big Apple." 6. Your door has more than three locks. 7. Your favorite movie has DeNiro and Pacino in it. 8. The most frequently used part of your car is the horn. 9. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression. 10. You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a yard. 11. You complain about having to mow it. 12. You consider Westchester "Upstate". 13. You think Central Park is "nature." 14. You're paying $1100 a month for a studio the size of a walk-in closet and you think it's a "steal." 15. You've been to New Jersey twice and got hopelessly lost both times. 16. You pay more each month to park your car than most people in the U.S. pay in rent. 17. You haven't seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you went away to camp as a kid. 18. You go to dinner at 9 and head out to the clubs when most Americans are heading to bed. 19. Your closet is filled with black clothes. 20. You pay $5 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28 cents. 21. You actually take fashion seriously. 22. Being truly alone makes you nervous. 23. You have 27 different menus next to your telephone. 24. Going to Long Island is considered a "road trip." 25. You've gotten jaywalking down to an art form. 26. You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you. 27. You haven't cooked a meal since helping mom last Thanksgiving with the turkey. 28. You take a taxi to get to your health club to exercise. 29. Fifty dollars worth of groceries fit in one paper bag. 30. You have a minimum of five "worst cab ride ever" stories. 31. You don't hear sirens anymore. 32. You've mentally blocked out all thoughts of the city's air quality and what it's doing to your lungs. 33. You live in a building with a larger population than most American towns. 34. 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 watch seller on your corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your newsstand guy is Indian and your favorite falafel guy is Egyptian.

21. Traffic regulations are mere suggestions

22. You know you're a New Yorker when you…understand that there are as many New Yorks as there are New Yorkers

23. You tip the super $10 to hang a picture on the wall because you don't own your own hammer.

I must say in response to this EXCELLENT article about What is a New Yorker, you have truly given us all a correct birdseye view (I know you just have pigeons there) of what it is like to live in New York and to be a New Yorker. This was worth reading!! Thank you!!

signed,
a New York wannabe!

ha! so true...i live in manhattan and have always live in the city...(nyc obviously) & all those things r insanely true...lolz

okdoes anyone know that you dont have to live/love the city to vbe a new yorker. im one, and i practicly hate it. i dont live there either.

NEW YORK IS A DREAM YOU SEE WITH YOUR EYES OPEN..............

charlene définition en francaiCharlene wrote:
>
> I must say in response to this EXCELLENT article about What
> is a New Yorker, you have truly given us all a correct
> birdseye view (I know you just have pigeons there) of what it
> is like to live in New York and to be a New Yorker. This was
> worth reading!! Thank you!!
>
> signed,
> a New York wannabe!

i agree!!! but you have to live it with someone you love!!

So much for spending 700 dollars a month for a shrink when i can just read that.
[www.listology.com]
go there for more of them

u really wanna know whats cool bout NYC?

Beg to differ on some of these.

1. I never heard ANYONE call Manhattan the city until I went to high school in the Bronx (I lived in Manhattan). A real born & raised Manhattanite will NEVER refer to it as "the city". Its downtown, uptown, midtown, or by neighborhood (Village, Harlem, Inwood, Little Italy, Chinatown, ect.). I can always tell a non born & raised Manhattanite when they say the city (also, it just sounds really dumb).

2. I never thought as Westchester as upstate. No one I knew did either, considering we did spend a lot of time there. Albany is upstate. Not all NYers are that geographically challenged.

3. We always owned a car. So did my grandparents who also lived in Manhattan.

Here's my additions:

1. You've been to tar beach & LOVE it.

2. You've gone to a keg party in the park.

3. You know red cap, blue cap, yellow cap are.

4. You know what a bodega is.

5. If your Catholic you know what parish you are in as well as surrounding parishes.

6. You DO know everyone in your building & have been inside their homes.

7. At one time you left the baby carriage under the stairs. And no one took it.

8. You or your kids played in the hallway of the building.

9. You decorated your fire escape for Christmas (extra points for other holidays).

10. You hung out in front of your building even though it was the most boring thing to do.

11. You've seen a McDonald's menu in Spanish (and yes, you are in NYC).

12. You know the difference btwn a Dominican & Puerto Rican, AFrican American & Jamaican, Irishman & Italian.

13. You went to nursery school, kindergarden, elementary, middle & high school here (and you have the pictures to prove it).

14. You remember what the trains looked like in the 80's.

15. You've know at least one person to have been murdered (seriously) & one who has murdered.

16. You know what a token is.

That's all I can think of now.

The above sounds ridiculous.

FIRST: Most people who live in Manhattan DO NOT know someone who's been murdered unless it's some corrupt rap star or hip hop manager they saw on TV.

The city is Manhattan, not the Bronx.

I dont go to MacDonald's because one characteristic of being a New Yorker is that you avoid all chain restaurants at all costs (pun intended) -- you can usually find cheaper food and happier (and awake) employees at the Chinese place (just 50 feet from your apt bldg) that gives you free wine with dinner.

Also, You usually find better, more constructive things to do than sit in front of a bldg, I dont care whose it is. Go read the paper or take a walk.

You'll never see a keg in any of Manhattan's parks, and if someone tried, they'd be legally slugged and probably lose their job.

I think I'd rather give my super a Christmas present than decorate the fire escape with Christmas decorations in a city that boasts about 50 different religions in a 20-block redius.

I don't care to know who my neighbors are. Unless they have a nocturnal and brutally obnoxious dog or kid, I definitely have more important things to do and a job to go to.

Hi:

this is all very funny... And I must say that I do think some of the things written here without being a New Yorker (unles my 7 days there count...), but I DO come from The City:

I'd LOVE to have my own washing machine and a drier, but have nowhere to put them!
I have no problem dozing off while standing in the public transportation - usually having no hand free to hold with because I have a purse and the rest of the things I must carry in my hands (no way would I EVER take a bag that's big enough!)
I do think the "park" next to my building is nature and if not that then definitely the forest few blocks away is!
I have never owned a car and never quite needed it either...
I do swear in my own language - especially when I fight with my US friends - although most of my days I speak English
my closet is PACKED with black clothes,
I feel something's wrong when there are no people around - no people is anything less than a crowd,
I don't drink beer but my whole drinking life have been paying awful money for something that not even remotely resembled red wine,
most often I "cook" sandwiches (bread with jam or cheese)
I certainly do not hear sirenes when they pass, I'd go mad, if I did!
when I don't breathe the car fumes, I get allergies
I do not own a hammer and get a maintenance guy to remove spiders from my apartment
FYI: PLANTS ON MY WINDOW SILL DO COUNT AS A GARDEN, OK? An HERB garden, to be precise.

And I was surprised and have wondered ever since my visit what Rudi Guiliani did with all the bums in NYC!! My city (Prague) belongs to the safest cities in Europe and homeless people are ALL OVER!!

And as to neighbors ... I don't know too many of them but always get caught off my guard when I find out how well they know me!!

Oh and we don't have fire staircases... We hope there will be no fires, I guess.

My contribution, which I bet must be same for New Yorkers is that blue sky can make the most beautiful day and the fact that you have 5 people bump into you in the last few minutes will NOT change it!

From all this and my US friends, I am judging that there is probably something global about coming from The City - Prague being The City of my home (especially in the eyes of a Prague "homie" -- all other "cities" in the CR are but villages to us)... Our reputation can be summarized easily by "If the whole world ceased to exist, but Prague would remain, we probably wouldn't notice" and amongst people from Prague (meaning people that don't hate it here and those that have lived here all their lives, literally all their lives) we say that "if all Prague ceased to exist and only our neighborhood remained, we wouldn't probably notice and neither would we mind".

And another thing that is similar is that there is ALWAYS ton of things to do here... But I still miss all the shapes and colors and flavors of people living in the US -- we are terribly same, white and stare at each other ALL the time. And while we stare, we usually notice that we shop in the same stores and our hairdressers must be friends or something!!

Sending a big hello to all people from the Big Apple (does it mean that all New Yorkers are worms in that apple??)

Marie from a Small Apple

you know you're a new yorker when someone asks where you're from and you say the city, then they ask what part, and you say manhatten thinking (psh the important part)
you know you're from new york when you j-walk at least twenty times a day, and ignore the tourists who think you're crazy.
you know you're a new yorker when you go away, and everyone says you talk too fast. then you come back home and everyone understands you just fine

Manhattan is overrated
Also I haven't heard many people call it "the city" and when they do it just sounds corny....

As for the 'big apple', I usually just hear it in a sarcastic context with maybe a dash of nostalgia...