Don't Look Up!

Ever since I was little, I have walked the streets of NYC with my head down (except of course when I needed to be accutely aware of what or who was around me i.e. street smarts). I have found money, lost items that I have tried to return such as wallets and many, many single baby shoes, pacifiers and mittens!

And all you people who always look up when you walk, you miss some interesting things too!

Another Urban Myth

The sidewalks are not paved with gold........but with PETALS!

Sidewalk RAGE

Sidewalk RAGE syndrome is an annoying, chronic condition suffered by many people native to NYC that often results in the following symptoms: brusqueness, impatience and rude behavior. Think road rage for pedestrians.

My husband and I experienced a recurrence of the illness yesterday when we attended a Broadway matinee. We left enough time to get to the subway, enough time to wait for a train and travel 3 stops downtown and what we thought was enough time to walk from the 42nd St. subway station to the Broadhurst Theater on 44th Street. Wrong! We encountered a Times Square area packed (and this is good for the city's economy!) with people, none of whom seemed to know where they were going.

Instead of slow-moving traffic keeping to the outside (either the curb or building lanes), these people (I know that sounds terrible) meander, sometimes two and three abreast, in the center lanes! They window shop from the center of the sidewalk. They buy hot dogs and pretzels from street vendors and proceed to stop and eat them in the center of the sidewalk. Then they turn and give you nasty looks when you bump into them or say, "Excuse me!" to get around them. I am not talking about elderly people.....I am talking about young, vigorous people who should be able to walk, gawk and talk at the same time! But NOOOOO!

In our efficient and practiced way, my husband and I snaked through and around these living obstacles and got to the theater on time. Just as were recovering from our sidewalk RAGE by reading the Playbill and discussing where we had seen the actors before (besides on Law & Order), the lights went down and we started to watch a wonderful production....only to begin to experience theater RAGE.

Someone in our row started removing the noisiest something from the noisiest plastic bag in the noisiest way imgainable to man! If I could have reached the culprit, I would have bloody throttled him or her! (We were seeing a performance of Mary Stuart, imported from the Donmar Warehouse in London!) The cheek! Someone two rows in front of us, despite the fact that her cellphone was turned off, had to check periodically for messages during the entire first act, illuminating her face and attracting the momentary attention of everyone nearby for just enough time for us all to lose our train of thought.

Is it any wonder New Yorkers are icy and abrupt with everything we have to put up with.....? By the way, I highly recommend this production...wordy but topical with magnificent acting and a minimum of pomp of circumstance. Bloody brilliant!

Street Runes

The MTA is making progress on the Second Avenue subway....how this project is still being paid for is anyone's guess! The pre-construction surveying has made it down to my neighborhood (in the 60's) and markings like this have popped up on all the sidewalks. If I could read this language, I would know exactly which part of the subterranean life of the city is being referred to...fiber optic lines, telephone cables (do we still have those?), water pipes, the sewer, where all the baby alligators flushed down toilets live etc.?

But I don't. I hope the people who will actually be doing the digging do!

Scaffolding - The Pro (I Can Only Think of One) & Cons

There is a lot of construction going on in NYC. Some of it is infrastructure repair but most of it is new building. It waits to be seen how much of what has been started will be finished because of the "economic downturn." For those of us living through such decisions, scaffolding is a constant addition to the list of obstacles we maneuver around on a daily basis.
Let's start with the
PRO (as I said, I can only think of one!)

~ During inclement weather, the scaffolding, if it doesn't leak too much, provides shelter from the storm. I was actually able to make it four blocks from the subway to my apartment building one day, dodging torrential rains, by zig zagging under scaffolding surrounding at least one building on every block. It even provides a place to come out of the rain while you're waiting to dash across the street.

CONS

~ These scaffolds are not good for street trees. Despite the fact that they are built around existing trees, the tree branches are crunched or worse, broken, by the wood panels that comprise the scaffolds structure.
~I have complained about the lack of space on city sidewalks before..especially when tourists, double-wide baby strollers or people with open umbrellas (because the scaffolding does leak) are around. Everything gets even more constricted under scaffolding.
~With all the serious construction accidents here lately, there are some people who are just plain afraid to walk under scaffolding. This means that store owners see reduced traffic while the construction is going on.
~Dog owners seem to pick up after their dogs even less than usual under scaffolding. (Remember I am a dog owner myself so I can make these harsh generalizations!).

Unwritten Rules

For huge numbers of people to be able to move around NYC efficiently, there have always been some unwritten rules that too many people are no longer following. Maybe because they have always been unwritten? Well, not any more. 

• Stay to the right when walking on streets or stairs
• Walk single file if the sidewalks are especially narrow or if you are pushing double wide baby strollers
• Let people get off the subway cars before you get on 
• Move to the center of the subway car or back of the bus if there is room (which there usually is)

Tourists are granted a 10 day exemption from these rules. Repeat visitors to the city are not considered tourists.

Unfortunately, we all know rules are not effective if they can not be enforced.