The Golden Rule Truth to Stay Out of Everyone’s Way
New York City’s streets are the nervous system binding this far-flung place and its giant population together
Author’s photo
Manhattan moves at an electric pace that few other cities can match. But what keeps the metropolis buzzing along is a social contract that instills order throughout this densely populated city. Those who howled on their knees in the subway were dragged off the roof and woke on the speedy land of Manhattan. They pick themselves out of basements and rush to offices and menial jobs.
There are so many different versions of New York, so many levels of history and psycho-geographies — literary New York and financial New York; uptown and downtown; the hipster havens of Greenpoint and Bushwick — that almost anything goes, as long as it comes with the right attitude.
New York City can be overwhelming in its vastness — more than 300 square miles, more than 8.5 million people, and so many distinct neighborhoods and languages spoken here that the number of neighborhoods and languages isn’t even fully agreed upon.
New York City’s streets are the nervous system binding this far-flung place and its giant population together, and their quirks seem fitting for this metropolis — a heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of haste. A battalion of bodies shimmied down the streets, homeless ‘yacketayakking’ screaming, vomiting, whispering facts and memories and anecdotes only they could hear.
New Yorkers have perfected a thousand-yard city block stare and a cellphone strut. Even if you have nowhere to be, you’re still in a rush. You go out of your way to evade the ten square blocks around the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas tree, where the body mass is impenetrable and unbearable. And in general, you stay away from Time Square.
You hate cars when you’re biking, bikers when you’re walking, and pedestrians when driving. You have hit a cab or car with your fist or umbrella when it has blocked the crosswalk.
Some of us in the city adopt an angry or intimidating demeanor to protect ourselves from the undesirables. It’s all designed to look tough or unhinged so no one tries to mess with us.
With our stride in full motion, we slant our eyebrows, crease our forehead, and squint our eyes, affecting an intense gaze designed to make ourselves look angry or stay away from the approach — what they call for women, a “resting bitch face.” A “resting bitch face” is when you’re not showing emotion on your face. It’s inadvertent. Sometimes, you do things subliminally that you don’t realize.
As people, we have a subliminal competition that controls how we act in a social environment. If we see someone who is different, we alienate them. If we see someone walk into a room with an ounce of self-confidence, we chop them down. However, it’s become something we’ve taken and run with as city-dwellers.
The golden rule is to stay out of everyone’s way. New Yorkers move fast, so allowing everyone else to move fast is essential.
Do this; we will likely be friendly, happy to give directions, and ready to share restaurant recommendations.
Being of the animal kingdom, it’s wired into us to use an assortment of displays of power to safeguard our safety and status in the pack and further our objectives. Not everyone is an apex predator or an alpha dog. But we are all tweaked into where we stand with one another, with scant exceptions. Would you rather be timid or intimidating?
The pursuit for dominance in animals is more nuanced than who is victorious at a knock-down, drag-out fight. It’s a power struggle that often looks more like an opera than a boxing match.
Power permeates every property of the social life of animals: where they live, whom they mate with, what they eat, where they eat, how many offspring they produce, and whom they join forces with. Nor are humans invincible to this magnificently intricate melodrama.
One of the reasons for the angry New Yorker stereotype may be rooted in common frustrations when visitors refuse to walk on the right side of the sidewalk. We live in a dense city, and unspoken rules (like sidewalk and subway etiquette) are the only thing that can keep things running smoothly.
Indeed, the classic New York look may be more about how you carry yourself than how you dress. This city is in almost constant flux 24/7, made of people mainly from elsewhere who come to New York to reinvent themselves.
But being showy is a big mistake — no pinks, yellows, or purples. Your entire closet is funereal black. We are into layered clothing, oversized totes, subdued tones — black, white, grayish greens, undone hair, and makeup. And pajama bottoms when you pick up your coffee fix in the mornings.
You can walk, hail a cab, and talk on the phone. You make the cabbie take your shorter, faster way — even if, in reality, it is neither shorter nor faster. You jaywalk — and would never consider not jaywalking. You don’t avoid eye contact with panhandlers. You often strike up a conversation with them.
You don’t get excited when a film crew shoots in your neighborhood again. You adopt a zigzagging path to evade waiting for the lights to change to cross the street. Like the New Yorkers we are, we get cranky as we swerve around tourists who make short stops to look at skylines or walk too slowly. And you are a skilled avoider of things at ground level. You’d own a strategic vision that overlooks everything from quizzical rats and dog poop.
We speak rapidly, have a very different pronunciation of some words, gesture expensively with our hands when speaking, and are opinionated.
So, if you’re a New Yorker, one way to respect your fellow citizen’s zone of privacy is not to stare at them. Looking in the face at someone you don’t know when you pass them or sitting on the subway can be interpreted as staring or an invitation to something unpleasant.
None of those things are unique to New York, but when taken together, they’re something of an identifiable New York stereotype.
The Big Apple is a city full of excitement, wonder, and light.
New York isn’t dangerous unless you dance down the street waving your wallet and shouting,
“I’m a tourist! I’m a tourist! Rip me off. It will make my NYC experience complete.”