whats it like to live in new york city
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Photograph: Aneese/Shutterstock
Unless yous enjoy trash and existence ripped off, and so by all means, movement on over.
The Large Apple certain is a magical place to vacation–museums direct out of the movies, dazzling Broadway shows starring what's-her-proper name-once again? from that-1-pop-band, and glittering Christmas lights on Fifth Avenue. It'southward no wonder millions fall in honey with information technology at first sight, myself included.
But like a holiday fling, things turned sour the moment I signed along that dotted line and committed to a total twelvemonth living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan. Now, I could listing all the things I loved nearly our whirlwind relationship…but you've heard them all before (re: a certain J-Lo-led romantic one-act). Let's be real. New York is as well a stinking pile of crap, blown into a fan-like clockwork mean solar day in, 24-hour interval out. When crap hits the fan, divorce is imminent. For those flirting with the thought of moving back, finish immediately. Don't let Jenny from the cake seduce you lot (oh lord, give us strength!), not post-pandemic, non ever. Here's a friendly reminder of what drove me insane.
1 OF fifteen
The Weather Is Harsh
Don't carp packing for 4 seasons because you will only feel two, and they're so extreme that way is the least of your worries. In winter, expect snow blizzards, chocolate-brown slosh, and rain puddles the size of a koi pond. In summer, expect your day to be an extended sauna session interspersed with cryotherapy whenever you enter a bus or a branch of Target.
Bound and fall last approximately two weeks each, so that Con-Ed energy bill might really exist affordable 1 month of the entire year. If not, then perhaps a two-twenty-four hours power outage will practise the trick.
2 OF 15
For the Cost of a Baby, You Go to Live in a Freight Container
At around $3,500 per month ($42,000 per twelvemonth, or the aforementioned toll of private adoption in the U.S.) you lot are granted the award of a 450-square foot, one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. The perks? Free workouts (it's six flights of stairs to reach your apartment—there'southward no elevator), more than free workouts (laundry is in the basement), and, wait for information technology…even more than gratuitous workouts (collecting your Amazon Prime orders earlier they are stolen from the foyer—there's no doorman either). Who needs Equinox, eh?
three OF 15
Your Friends Volition Never Be F.R.I.E.Northward.D.S
Everybody is so super busy and of import that you volition never enjoy quality time in a group of six, allow lone be dubbed the "Rachel" of the gang (sigh). Instead, your colleagues, acquaintances, neighbors, and people from Meetup.com volition detest you lot or each other for no reason at all, unless you have a chore with admission to complimentary Book of Mormon tickets. Social distancing isn't a protocol here, it's a lifestyle.
iv OF 15
Everyone Is a Workaholic
"If y'all can make information technology hither, you lot can make it anywhere." Well, they got that right, because nowhere else in the world are so many people withal decorated by 9 p.m. Six months in, you'll have adjusted to midnight Chipotle, increased volumes of vodka and Red Balderdash mixed into your java, and all ten days of your annual leave days spent at a Catskills "spa," more than commonly known equally rehab.
v OF 15
The MTA Is a Disgrace
For those who think existence the cocky-proclaimed "capital letter of the globe" equates to advanced public transit systems, you're awfully wrong. Rush hour trains run at 10 minutes or longer (don't trust those busted digital signs) intervals and are maybe wiped down with a rag one time in a blue moon (when the MTA proudly announces, during a global pandemic, that cleaning surfaces will significantly increase to once every three days, you know deep sanitization has never been a priority).
Shockingly, locals don't see value in paying $2.75 to journeying in a cesspool of homo feces and rats the size of dachshunds either, and so they jump turnstiles in full view of the busy-on-TikTok station staff.
6 OF xv
A Quick Trader Joe's Shop Requires at To the lowest degree an Hour
If yous want to avert the high prices of bodegas, you have to store at Trader Joe'due south. The problem is everyone else is doing the same, so shopping for essentials turns into an hour-long weight-lifting session whereby you pick your basket up and down over and over 'til you reach the front end of the line. Because the city has turned you into a raging alcoholic you also need TJ's wine, simply the only store that stocks it is in Union Foursquare. It'southward carve up from the regular store, and the line is fifty-fifty longer.
7 OF 15
Pizzerias Lie in Their Marketing
Every single New York publication and book will recommend the "all-time pizza in the New York," but the problem is they all recommend a different pizzeria. The definition of "best" is the most excellent, the number one. It's impossible to have 500 number one pizzerias. Nevertheless, this doesn't cease 500 pizzerias labeling themselves the "best pizza in New York," complete with signage at the forepart door.
8 OF 15
New Yorkers Can Be Extremely Argumentative Virtually New York
When you lot argue with a New Yorker, prepare to lose fifty-fifty when you lot're right. It'due south equally if they're in a cult, and the cadre commandment is "New York is the greatest place on world." Disagree and you are burned at the stake. I'd like to hear them out (yous take no pick since they are shouting), but I've known so many that accept only traveled to three cities their whole lives, all inside North America, that information technology makes them hard to be taken seriously.
9 OF fifteen
The Trash Is Everywhere
If you've ever seen an episode of Hoarders you'll understand when I say NYC is an explosion of mess, not simply of regular ol' garbage like bottles and take-out boxes, but literally anything and everything, splashed across the sidewalk, the park, and the beach. You tin get to a posh neighborhood like Chelsea and still stride on a whole dead cat, a heap of used tampons, and an expired regal cauliflower quicker than y'all can say, "Not today, De Blasio." At that place is no escape.
10 OF 15
Coney Isle'south Beaches Are Packed and Filthy
Yous could compare Coney Island with a beach, or you lot could compare Coney Island with a landfill. I cull the latter. The water is a smoothie of contaminated soil, marine fuel, and the occasional abrupt object, while the sand contains more eroded plastic forks than seashells. Amazingly the take chances of bacterial infection does cipher to warn super-immune New Yorkers, and betwixt June and September, every inch of wasteland, I hateful sand, is covered over with counterfeit Peppa Pig towels and Tupperware.
11 OF 15
And then-Called Pals Will Holiday in the Hamptons Without You
If you're an Upper E Side millionaire or have a first name that rhymes with Melania, then your beaches are in the Hamptons, situated at the tip of Long Island. There information technology's make clean because it's unreachable by LIRR/Amtrak /Greyhound and as well expensive for regular New Yorkers to stay overnight. Possibly a colleague whose daddy plays golf with and then-and-so from Tesla will one day slip a "Oh my gah, we should all go to the Hamptons together!" during Wasabi dejeuner, but rest assured she volition not mean it. Come summer, the prettier people from the office have disappeared early Friday and you've spent the whole weekend on your secret IG business relationship watching their stories lonely in your apartment.
12 OF 15
Outdoor Festive Occasions Are Torture
Expats know all as well well that when folks back dwelling come and visit, they volume around festive "spectacles" like the ball drop, the Rockefeller tree lighting, and Macy'south Thanksgiving Parade. Not only practise they assume yous have front row access to all these events (you don't), but they likewise assume you'll accept a blast accompanying them out in the freezing cold. Next thing you lot know, you're watching Glee's Lea Michele with a severely-weakened bladder for the second fourth dimension in ii weeks and you withal don't own a Planet Fitness hat.
13 OF fifteen
The City Soundtrack Will Bulldoze You Insane
No point making a "New York, New York" playlist because the soundtrack to your new life in the metropolis will exist police force sirens and taxi horns, all twenty-four hours every twenty-four hour period, no matter where on the map you lot are.
In the four weeks of the year when y'all can really sleep with your windows open and not drench the sheets in sweat/become frostbite on your nipples, you're blasted with excruciating dissonance pollution through dawn, then yous have the drilling. Oh, the drilling. Well…at present you understand why everyone's lost their cheer.
14 OF xv
There's Nowhere to Relish Good Coffee
Groggy after a rough dark'south slumber? Unless yous alive between Columbia University and the pinnacle of Prospect Park, invest in a auto and an illy subscription, because your best nearby options volition be Dunkin' Donuts and Brimming Full o'Nuts. For those lucky to live by a cute artisan java shop, y'all'll savor the flavors of that $7 flat white walking-there will be no bachelor seats within, and hanging around outside means you simply bask the fleshy ground coffee with freshly fermenting trash (told you it was everywhere).
fifteen OF xv
You Have to Be on Guard Each Time You Leave the Front end Door
It goes without saying that you lot demand to be vigilant against street crime in New York merely what newbies don't realize is that in add-on, you have to worry about people y'all work with, do business with, slumber with, and live with. Whether information technology's a colleague stealing your ideas, restaurants adding an actress canteen to your tab, landlords screwing yous for the security deposit, or one-night-stands booking their Uber home on your telephone, life in New York is a never-ending hustle and quite frankly, exhausting. It's okay to acknowledge you hate New York because trust me, New York hates you right back.
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Source: https://www.fodors.com/world/north-america/usa/new-york/new-york-city/experiences/news/thinking-about-moving-back-to-new-york-here-are-15-reasons-i-hated-living-there
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