Sit - Take a Load Off!

NYC is user-friendly...really. It has to be, with 8 million residents and millions more people visiting temporarily. Since people walk a lot in NYC, that means there have to be places to rest...spontaneous, impromptu places to "park it."

These people-parking spaces (much easier to find than car-parking spaces) include chairs, benches and sometimes sculptures where you can rest and people watch and pet watch and you don't have to buy a thing!

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!

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.