Glove and Boots, a webseries starring puppets, brings us Johnny T’s NYC Tourist Tips. This puppet is a native New Yorker and lays out all the rules for out of town visitors. He’s got a lot of good points. Tourists manage to make it super easy to hate them with a deep and profound passion. That’s right, after a while it becomes a hobby. A hobby that could easily become dangerous. Because there’s nothing more annoying than an entire group strolling side by side, taking up the whole damn sidewalk so no one can get around, stopping to take a picture every three seconds, and you’re just trying to make it to work on time. In those situations it’s easy to justify Red Rover-ing through those @$$holes and flicking them off for good measure because HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE BE SO OBLVIOUS? ARE YOU NOT AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS? Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take my blood pressure medication.
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On the subway. If you’re standing in the doorway, and the door opens. YOU’RE IN THE WAY! Move away from the doors when you get on the train, move toward the doors before the train arrives at your stop.
Escalators are not a conversational oasis that we provide for tourists. If you are old, injured, sick or hung over, stand to the right. The left lane in an escalator is for climbing; it’s for people who have somewhere to be. Wanting to converse with your companion is no excuse. Talk when you’re above ground. You won’t be able to hear anyone over the trains anyway.
Don’t move toward the doors before the train stops unless there is a clear path to it. There’s plenty of time to get off. Climbing over people at the precise moment when everyone is trying their hardest to keep their balance doesn’t help… especially if you are getting off in Union Square along with THE REST OF THE CAR.
Also, note that most people in NYC are nice, but no one is just ambling around. The street may as well be a factory floor and people are there to kick ass and take names. Don’t be upset if you get bumped into, or even trampled. It’s the rat race we live and you’re just visiting. With that said, most anyone will give you directions if you need them.
Finally, TIme’s Square is the dirty Disney Land of NYC. Don’t stay there! Walk through it, once, maybe.
And take a free round-trip ride on the Staten Island ferry to see the city from the water and catch a glimpse of the statue of liberty without forking over a bunch of cash, or wasting half of your day in the process. Walk up Wall St. when you’re done and play with the bull.
As native born New Yorker ( I was actually baptized at St. Bart’s) my own rule for safety is “If you stop, you’re dead”. NYC natives don’t stop when they see something suspicious or or are solicited for a handout, they just keep walking straight ahead at their normal brisk pace.
Also, navigating Manhattan on foot is easy. It takes one minute to walk between streets and three minutes for a cross-town block. Also, there’s no such avenue called “The Avenue of the Americas” ; it’s “Sixth Avenue”.
This works for anywhere Americans are tourists, particularly abroad. Be aware of your surroundings, don’t annoy the natives by getting in their way or taking up the sidewalk, don’t forget that people have to get to work, and don’t forget to get off the beaten path.
For one thing, visitors should be advised to step aside from the middle of the sidewalk when having a briefing or whatever. The same goes for those visitors who choose to stand at intersection corners, blocking pedisterian traffic.