Some of my Alabama cousins came to visit last week, and we had a great time catching up after a few years apart. My cousins live in Russellville, AL, a small town in northwest Alabama.
During her visit, one of my cousins said "Everyone here looks so unhappy. They need to smile more."
On the surface, New Yorkers do seem pretty dour. Yet, I have found New York to be a surprisingly friendly and warm place. I guess when living here, you are forced to interact much more than on a visit. Or maybe it is because I was expecting the worst:
"You be careful up there, John" my Mother told me upon my move, "Yankees are ... different...than you and me."
In the subway today, I had one of those maddening New York slap-down moments. I call it a New York slap-down because just when you are getting cocky and confident about this place, you realize how much more you have to learn.
I had started to think I knew the subway pretty well. After relying on Hopstop.com to route me, from time to time, I could outwit the computer directions it sent me by taking another train and not waiting for the exact train Hopstop recommended to me. This morning, I was headed to the Upper East Side, and while waiting on an E train going north (which is what Hopstop told me to do), I decided to hop on the C train instead. In my part of town, the C and E stop at the same places and are interchangeable. I knew they separated at some point, just not exactly where. Needless to say, the C did not stop where I wanted to go.
I got off at the next stop so that I could walk back down to the 50th and 8th station to get back on the E. The station was clearly marked "C, E" so I walked down and stood at the platform. Three C trains went by before another guy walked up to me and asked about the E train.
We both discussed how odd it was that no E train had come. Then we discussed how the signs were not that clear, but we just knew that the E came here. I got out my wallet map of the subway and confirmed that, in fact, both the C and E stopped at this very station. Then we waited another ten minutes. Through perfectly friendly small talk, I found out he was a lifetime New Yorker, but rarely used this particular station.
Finally, my new subway friend and I went to ask the station attendant what was going on with the E train.
In doing so, we ran across a big sign pointing us down one flight of stairs, to the E train platform, located directly underneath the C train platform.
We both had a good laugh at the reality that neither the new New Yorker nor the old New Yorker had a clue.
Living in this city takes Hopstop, pocket maps, and the guts to ask station attendants. It takes paying attention to the signs, and spending some time studying the subway. Occasionally, it takes a perfectly friendly long-time New York stranger.
Even after all of that, New York will still slap you down from time to time. It is a tough town. So, New Yorkers admittedly smile a little less. It doesn't mean we don't still laugh...just that it is often at ourselves. After all, no self-respecting New Yorker would wait through three C trains.
