10 Signs You Definitely Belong In New York City
New York City isn’t for everyone. It’s big, crowded and can at times smell worse than your be-singleted uncle after four beers and a game of backyard cricket. If you like open spaces, big houses, backyards, and not having the constant hum of humanity (cursed sirens) invade your every waking hour, then perhaps NYC isn’t your cup of tea. Hell, if you like cups of tea, NYC probably isn’t for you either. BUT! If you’re displaying the following signs, perhaps you’re built just right for the Greatest City in the World (© David Letterman).
#1 You hate driving…
If you’re sick of ‘gas, brake, honk. Gas, brake, honk; honk, honk, gas, gas gas’ then you should move to NYC and kiss your driving frustrations goodbye. Your blood pressure will thank you, because in NYC you’ll never have to drive again. Seriously, every time you hear someone ask a New Yorker “Where do you keep your car?” the answer is, without fail, a laugh.
#2 … But you love being driven, and your cab game is unstoppable
Look. Other people may want cabs, but you get cabs. Everywhere. And if you have no qualms when it comes to conveniently ignoring other people waiting for cabs, then you and your ‘can do’ attitude belong in New York City. They’re everywhere. So if you’re a cab-hailing demi-God who is all about direct routes, NYC is your holy city. After all, what are you going to do? Get on the subway with all of its sweat, smells (kimchi!?) and terrifying empty carriages? Add apps like Uber, Whisk and Lyft and never drive again.
#3 You demand the best
If you’re the type of person to adhere to Queen songs and search out the best food/coffee/bar/fashion/music… then why aren’t you saying goodbye to your loved ones and making your arrangements to move to NYC already? The food in NYC is incomparable, the bars are plentiful and open plenty late, the fashion is world-beating, and every touring band on the planet comes through New York. Hell, you can even find coffee — which America gets routinely ripped for — that’s excellent… thanks to a notable Australian influence.
#4 You posses a fearlessness (bordering on recklessness)
If you can shrug off the sight of subway rats, and the smell of the summertime garbage of eight million people doesn’t bother you, then New York City is a walk in the park. Well. Even if you go for a walk in a park, you might find a coyote, or a bear.
But if you can wait in line to get into a club and aren’t perturbed when discovering that it’s only bottle service, or tackle dumplings while seated on plastic chairs in a seedy Chinatown spot while there’s an old guy asleep at the table next to you, or navigate street-corner reservoirs of frozen slush in freezing temperatures, or stomach street cart wet dogs, or if you can walk through Times Square and avoid both being hassled by Elmo and flipping out amid the reams of tourists, then NYC is your kinda town.
#5 Small apartments & rooftop bars are your thing
If you think that living in a big house with a backyard and lots of room is inefficient, then a) you’re not wrong, and b) perhaps you should try New York. NYC is definitely for anyone who believes that living in a small apartment is cheaper and makes for easy tidying, and those who are of the opinion that all day-drinking should be done on rooftops (because there’s not enough space for beer gardens). Who cares how big your apartment is when you’ve got the greatest city in the world to day drink in?
#6 You really, really love walking
Fearlessness also comes in handy if you’re adept at jaywalking, dodging cyclists, and ignoring oncoming traffic. Sure, walking in NYC can suck, but it’s the greatest city in the world to walk around if you don’t mind using what your bi-pedal ancestors gave you. So, if you like working your pins now, just imagine striding around and getting to experience sights like say, the High Line, or the Flatiron Building, the many, varied delights of Central Park, or the views of the Queensboro Bridge from the tiny little hidden park at the end of East 57th street, or walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, for that matter. Whatever – if you dig walking, NYC is your bag.
#7 You have a thing for American sports
Understand the phrases ‘third-down and two’, ‘corner-zone fastball’, ‘high pick’n’roll’, and ‘cross-checking’? Well, NYC, as befits the largest metropolis in the USA, has two teams in each sports league and has the biggest presence in all four of the major professional sports in America.
Baseball has the storied Yankees and the scrappy Mets. The NBA is covered by the glamorous (if currently hapless) Knicks and Jay-Z sponsored Brooklyn Nets. Their NFL teams – the Jets and Giants – may play in New Jersey, but they’re all anybody talks about for four months each year, and the NHL possesses two powerhouses with the Rangers and the Islanders (who will move to Brooklyn next year). The best part is that you don’t even have to support the NY teams – on sheers numbers alone, almost every other sporting team in the country visits New York within a 12 month period. Sports!
#8 Oh, you like culture?
If you’re the person who’s always dragging friends, family, casual acquaintances, pets and strangers to museums and galleries in places like Marrickville, or Coburg, or New Farm or somewhere in Adelaide… Wellllll, the New York Times easily whip up a list of 50 — yes, 50 — galleries in NYC to check out on a single weekend. Dude. 50. That’s ridiculous. Add to that the ability to simply wander through countless Chelsea galleries at a whim, and I think you need to move to New York already.
Plus, y’know, there’s Broadway. And off-Broadway. And off-off-Broadway. And the Lincoln Center (with the Met Opera, New York Ballet the NY Symphony and so on). And, like, Alec Baldwin is probably around somewhere too.
#9 Your thirst for adventure means you like secrets. Lots of them.
Not just stuff like “Kristine’s brother is actually dating her best friend, but he’s also kinda maybe seeing Abigail, AND he’s still very active on Tinder”, but stuff like secret bars (heaps of them), secret pizzerias, secret scary stuff, secret subway tunnels, secret subway stations, secret subway station art galleries, secret Central Park caves, secret rooftop runways and fighter jets, secret 1920s jazz clubs… it just keeps going on. And on. And on. And on.
#10 You’re pretty good at ignoring famous people
Sure, it might be because it takes your girlfriend to point out that the DJ in the bar you’re in is actually Dan from Gossip Girl, but when you walk past Tony Danza on the street and you don’t freak out or sit next to Jon Hamm in a restaurant and don’t follow him into the bathroom, that’s when you know you belong in New York City.
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