Artists

The metropolis is crawling with artists- actors, writers, painters, photographers, musicians, designers- you name it, they’re here. You have those at the top of their career and those struggling to get in the door all on one little island. For la boheme we survive off day jobs– catering, promoting, office work, street performing– dreaming of a big break and often having existential career crisis along the way.

Broadway

Fan kicks, show stoppers, bright lights, and all that jazz. Home of the biggest budget productions, you have to have a million dollar set in this day and age of The Spiderman Atrocity, regardless of what the show calls for. Wicked, The Lion King, Jersey Boys, The Phantom of the Opera, and Mamma Mia are the big men on campus. No one need pay full price to see a show and if you have a Student ID it’s your golden ticket.

Bumblefuck

New Yorkers have a very city-centric view to the world. “Any thing I could ever want is here in NYC, why should I ever leave?” If it’s inaccessible by MTA or the population is under one million, it’s “Bumblefuck”, “The Middle of Nowhere”.

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Celebrities

Manhattan and Brooklyn especially are home to many celebrities. In addition, many movies and some TV shows are filmed on location here. Celebrity sightings are not uncommon. But if you ask a local “Where can I go to see celebs?” they’ll roll  their eyes at you.

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Central Park

Snow and ice make it precarious during the winter but good for sledding and skating. Gorgeous during the spring, fall, and summer. Perfect for picnics, biking, running, long walks, and feeling like you’re outside the city. Home of Shakespeare in the Park and many a softball game. Specific clichés: carriage ride through Central Park, the Great Lawn, Bethesda Fountain, The Mall, Boathouse, and Alice in Wonderland statue.

Coffee

There’s a Starbucks on every corner. New Yorkers are addicted and the price here is more than anywhere else in the country.

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Dating

In a city where single women out number single men by about 200,000, the dating scene here is brutal. My experience is a handful of dead-end dates and a few quasi-relationships. I’ve met men on park benches, on the street, at work, waiting on line at the super market, and online. Everyone is playing the field and it is a big, fucking, battle field.

Drinking

New Yorker’s are notorious drinkers. A social drinker here is easily a boarder-line alcoholic any where else. This is impart to a hug selection of bars, none which close before 4AM, and cabs that eliminated driving home. Biggest clichéd drinks: Cosmopolitan, Manhattan

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Fashion

Home of American Fashion Week, NYC is one of the major fashion capitals of the world. Between 5th Avenue, Soho, and the Meat Packing District, shops for designer wears abound. As a result, is a natural habitat for models. Scrunchies, sweatpants, and sandals over socks are never worn in public. Black is the preferred color more often than not.

The Hamptons

Where any New Yorker with any kind of money and social standing spends the weekends during the summer. A place to escape the city heat and enjoy the beach it is filled with celebrities, mansions, clubs, lawns, and a certain Lacoste je ne sais quoi.

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Housing

Apartments are tiny and easily 3x more expensive than anywhere else in the US. You definitely have roommates and neighbors who you never talk to but you know they wake up because you can hear their alarm clocks go off. Pray you don’t have a fighting couple or opera singer across the air shaft.

Manhattanites spend a good amount of time away from home, going out to eat sometimes for every meal, socializing at bars and events, and at parties in their friends houses in Brooklyn/Queens.

Rude New Yorkers

New Yorkers are rude, unfriendly, and filthy mouthed. They have no problem yelling obscenities at each other. This cliché is most true when you get in the way of a New Yorker in a hurry or one who just had a deal fall through.

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Sex and the City

The show that inspired 200,000 women to move to NYC so now dating is even harder. Shot on location, this is the quintessential New York television show. This is what Midwesterns  watching edited episodes on the CW think NYC is. They aren’t half wrong. Everyone who lives in New York and knows Sex and the City has at some point said in conversation, “It’s just like that episode of SATC where..”

Skyscrapers

The Chrysler, the Empire State, Trump Tower, and of course the World Trade Towers: icons of architecture. There is nothing like walking down a street surrounded by towering buildings. They may make it difficult to see sunsets but I adore seeing the moon between their silhouettes.

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Times Square

Bright lights. Hustle and Bustle. This is the center of it all. Swarming with tourists, it is apparently the most traveled to destination in the world. It’s a bit like a theme park. People are dressed up as Elmo and Sponge Bob on every corner looking for tips, you can’t walk ten feet with out someone trying to sell you something. It’s dirty and crowded but it’s the cross roads of Broadway.

Transportation

No one owns a car or at least they never drive it. New Yorkers walk or take cabs. The brave/crazy ones bike. The relationship with the subway is love/hate at best. Everyone who takes it has at least one crazy subway story.