True story except I was in Boston at the time. This guy with a thick (German?) accent asked my mom for directions then asked for her to point out on the GPS he was holding. I guess it would make sense to get oriented, but it was kind of obvious which way they were facing because we were on Boston Common and the enormous park on the map was a dead giveaway.
This is the same eccentric C train announcer who appeared in this comic. This is something else that he says. A very odd sort of thing to say to the people on the train. His tone of voice almost makes me think he’s hypnotizing us and that the next words out of his mouth will be “when I snap my fingers you will be under my spell…”
A friend recently told me this thing she heard “People from Los Angeles are mean but they pretend to be nice, and people from New York are nice but they pretend to be mean.” This is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in recent memory and is now one of my new favorite quotes. Wish I had been clever enough to think up that one.
I wish I could claim to be the one who figured this out but I don’t drive so the likelihood of me knowing this firsthand is slim to none. A person in my kung fu class who has been in New York for a very long time mentioned this off hand during a conversation so I wrote it down. They said with confidence that this is the only place where you can turn right on red in New York City, but if anyone knows otherwise please let me know.
A week or so ago I gave a woman wrong directions to Orchard street because I was confusing it with another street that I knew ran perpendicular to Allen street. Though in retrospect, it sounded like she already knew it was past Allen street and I was just confused. Plus this past weekend I think it was the first time I’ve ever completely missed my subway stop before. I was playing Meteos on my DS and I totally didn’t notice. The thing is that I have a good idea about how much time is in between the stops, but when playing games time works differently. So yes, I felt like a total New York n00b.
If you can’t realize that Broadway only goes South then you really should not be the one passing out instructions. Earlier this week I saw this exchange when I was on Houston and Brodway. I was in something of a hurry so I didn’t butt in, the the urge was more than tempting.
This one’s actually just for the New York crowd, I don’t expect anyone from out of town to get this one. The movie theater at Union Square used to be owned by United Artists, then it was bought by Regal Entertainment. I don’t even remember how long it’s been owned by them because I still call it the UA and all my friends call it the UA. This never struck me as odd until I went to see Batman Begins last night with a bunch of people from work including the new intern. We were standing around in a circle talking about the UA when he kind of gave us a blank stare. I had a nice little New Yorker inner-squee moment at this semi-exclusive knowledge.
You can never tell how good the knowledge of a cab driver or a car service driver is. Usually I find the cab drivers have a much better knowledge of where to go and how to get from point A to point B and also take in consideration how traffic is during different parts of the day. But with car service guys I take home from work late at night I usually give them directions each time to be on the safe side. If I start off and they say that they know then I’ll back off. But sometimes they’ll start to take the wrong bridge into Brooklyn and it’s just silly. It never fills you with confidence when the more premium service seems to have more shortcomings than the alternative.
This is something my sister said to me when she visited once. Either we were on the street or we just got out of the subway and she asked me which way was uptown. I think this conversation is almost verbatim the one we had.
I think this is a funny New York situation that happens sometimes. A person will ask for directions and after one person gives their take, someone else will butt in with a way they think is ten times faster. I’ve never interrupted to give different directions, but I’ve thought of doing it when I hear someone giving very roundabout directions.
Though sometimes even that wouldn’t work. I was in the financial district with some friends and a person was asking where the Statue of Liberty was. We pointed in the general direction telling him he had to take the ferry to which he said in an accented voice “No! It’s ok, I walk.” Then he asked where the Empire State Building was, and after we pointed it out and insisted he take the subway he responded in the same way saying that he’d walk. You just can’t help some people.
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