The Real New York ( Introduction Part 1)

This month’s Matters Most honoree Rebecca from Art of Stumbling  has challenged me to a blog post. She wants me to write about New York City.

My initial reaction to the request was “Sweet! This is easy!” The month is almost over and i realized I have too much to say. So this is PART ONE of my New York series. I also realized how much of a typical New Yorker I am. I take my city for granted. I thought I had a million photos of NY and the buildings and sites. What i actually have is a million photos of my face and your lucky if you catch  a glimpse of light in the background.  So for one of these parts( when i have time and money) I will go on a tourist day to take pictures (no face shots, promise) and show you The Real New York.

I realize even in my blog here, i write about daily things and places with the assumption every one is familiar with New York. That’s not true and fair especially considering the bulk of my active followers are from the UK.

So let’s start by saying this: I’m from Queens. One of the boroughs of New York. New York City is the borough known as Manhattan and  is what you see on all the movies and TV shows. For the most part ,they are OKAY depictions of Manhattan. But it isn’t always so fabulous. For us that live here, sometimes it is annoying. We walk around in a hurry, cars drive to fast and reckless making a left hand turn from 3 lanes over in the right lane,  cars dont let you cross the street, we cross the street without looking. It’s a mess.  In some of the “popular places” everyone is very blase and in a hurry and the streets are flooding with annoyance. Some people are inconsiderate and literrally spoke walking and you bump right into them. Others walk straight out of a store into the flow of people walking and stop. Others yet simply are walking and then decide they don’t want to walk that direction anymore and turn around without consideration to the people walking behind them. We don’t look up at our buildings and skyscrapers. We hustle from the train to the destination and from the destination to our homes.

Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx are the surrounding boroughs and these are more residential than Manhattan. Sure, we have our supermarkets and clubs and bars, movie theaters and shopping centers. But, it’s not as glamorous as Manhattan. Almost everyone through the bulk of their outings prefer to go into the city.It’s actually easier too. Especially when meeting up with friends that live in various places throughout Brooklyn and Queens. Everyone can take a train and meet up with almost the same commuting time and distance.

But there is also Staten Island which you literally either have to have a car to drive over the bridge too or take the ferry- across the water.  There is Long Island which is more of townships and you need a car to drive everywhere.  But at least long island is accessible with the Long Island Rail Road. There is also upstate New York which us inner city folk think of as the country like lands.

The best part about New York City and the surrounding boroughs is the accessibility with trains and buses. In an hour, you can get anywhere. Sure, having a car is great and convenient , but it’s not a necessity.  In my neighborhood, I can walk four blocks to the main avenue and within 10 blocks in either direction I have everything I could possibly need. Supermarket( actually there is 3 ) , pharmacies , doctors, dry cleaners, laundry mats, clothing stores, a million and one dollar stores, deli’s at ever corner , liquor stores, fast food places and restaurants  Also, there is the main train station and a variety of buses I can take to take me wherever I need to go.  Most of the time, its easier to take the train or a bus than to drive because of traffic, parking or it’s simply cheaper to buy a weekly metro card for 30 bucks then spend all that gas money. What most people do, we take public  transportation for the menial tasks and destinations and save the driving for fun things like going shopping or the beach. The only reason I want a car is for food shopping. It’s a bitch paying attention to what you can and cannot get because you have to carry bags walking home.

But, that’s another good thing I love. Walking. It is a very real option. We have sidewalks. Crosswalks. Street lights. So like the other night the hubby and I went out to a visit a friend and we stupidly checked the wrong schedule  for the bus. WE arrived at the bus stop around 4am and we thought the bus was going to arrive 420ish but when we checked the schedule on the post it actually said 459am. So, it was cold and we said we’ll walk a bit , a couple stops to waste time. We ended up just walking all the way home.

OLD picture of me, circa 2004, sitting on train station stairs

That’s another thing. They  call it the city that never sleeps for a reason. The MTA is always running. Sure, it’s always messed up with detours and rerouting and at night time it takes forever for the train to come. But, it eventually does. SO if you live in an outer borough and you don’t have many options for “fun times” or hanging out, we can always hop a train to Manhattan for more options. It makes being young fun and eventful.  Cabs are always an options too.
In Manhattan we have the yellow cabs. They rarely like to take fares out of Manhattan but you can always find one that does. For the outer city boroughs there are local cab companies and they will take you anywhere. Bars and lounges are typically open til 4am ( everyday of the week) but some places stay open later. They’re always 24 hours restaurants and dinners.

***Okay, so now I have explained some of the basic facts about New York which will make the following posts easier to understand. I’ll conclude this post for now. Part two I will take you on to some SITES that I have pictures of. Then I actually will be going places to take pictures and share the stories and images with you. SOME of the images in this post are mine, the others were plucked from google using various generic search terms.

Related articles

• Driving in the City (jeanknowscars.com)
• Places to visit – Manhattan (andreastankovic.wordpress.com)
• When in New York: Brooklyn (onefinestay.com)
• The Rent Conundrum: Brooklynites Are Fleeing Back To Manhattan! (blogs.villagevoice.com)
• Not Your Typical Tourist: Alternative Guide Books to New York City (flipkey.com)