Life in New York

by Laura Pedersen

  When I arrived in Manhattan, a small number of chunky Checker cabs were still plying the streets, but they had mostly been overtaken by rectangular Chevy Caprices followed by boxy Ford Crown Victorias. Cab drivers were young African Americans, along with some old, heavily Noo Yawk–accented white guys. But I’ve not seen an American-born cab driver, black or white, in more than twenty-five years. There was a sudden shift to chain-smoking Russians and eastern Europeans who freely offered hangover cures that involved no small amount of vodka and ground pepper, then to Haitians perched on beaded seat covers playing French radio stations, and now to South Asians on multiparty cell phone lines with plates of tikka masala from Curry in a Hurry on the dashboard. In three decades I’ve had a total of

  two women cab drivers, and one had her mother riding shotgun in the passenger seat.

  Taxis have a thick Plexiglas partition to prevent a passenger from shooting the driver at point blank range. It also ensures that all the air-conditioning remains in the front of the cab while allowing the smell of the driver’s dinner to hit you full in the face. If you need a reason to quarry the grimy pleather interior for a seatbelt, it’s that the Plexiglas divider six inches from your nose will smash every bone in your face – not if the taxi stops short but when the taxi stops short. Some riders view this as an avenue for getting free cosmetic surgery and carry a picture of their dream facial features with them at all times since New Yorkers have no single standard for beauty. It’s amazing how some folks want their butt fat put in their cheeks, while just as many others want their cheek fat put into their butts.

  The current crop of taxi drivers is pleasant and friendly, despite the fact that, while panhandlers can make change in any denomination you want, these cabbies can rarely break a twenty. It is possible to pay by credit card nowadays, as long as the sun isn’t shining, in which case you can’t see anything on the computer screen. If you’re a kibitzer, about one in three of these drivers will tell you they were a doctor in India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh. So now I’m afraid to travel to those countries because if I suddenly need medical attention all the doctors are back here stuck in gridlock. The only real problem with cabbies from the subcontinent is that they learned to drive in a place bedeviled by monsoons and bovines rather than blizzards and black ice, so you really don’t want to be their first passenger in a snowstorm. “Turn the wheel into a skid” means nothing to these guys.

  I must admit that New York taxi drivers are good about letting ambulances through, not because it’s illegal to obstruct the path of an emergency vehicle but because it enables the cabbies to get directly behind the ambulance and pretend to be taking a family member to the hospital. It’s possible to see an ambulance with a line of twenty or so taxis and a U-Haul truck following behind, looking as if a Bollywood star is being rushed to the emergency room along with most of his extended family. The ultimate game of chicken on the streets of

  New York is between NASCAR ambulance drivers and kamikaze bike messengers.

  Growing up in Western New York, I knew all about the Pillsbury Doughboy, Michelin Man, Shell Answer Man, and with the bad economy we had more than our share of repo men, but I’d never heard of squeegee men. These tended to be the “working homeless” or “most drug-addled” depending on your reference point, who staked out areas known for gridlock and started washing windshields uninvited. Now, had they actually carried a bucket, scrubber, and cloth, they could’ve possibly coexisted in harmony with motorists while earning some money, like the unlicensed drivers waiting at airport terminals to take you into the city (or leave you dead in Brownsville) when the taxi line is too long, or the flower and water sellers in front of the bridges and tunnels. But these disheveled practitioners used a corroded sponge and dirty rag to ensure your windshield was grimier than before, demanded money while holding the end of a stick in your face, and delayed traffic. If you thought the carwash was scary when you were little, you should see kids in the backseat being faced down by a squeegee man. That is the real Halloween right there. It’s surprising that Stephen King hasn’t published Squeegee Man: Vengeance at the Midtown Tunnel.

  I’d also never heard the word rubbernecking until I moved to New York City and the radio blared traffic reports that involved long delays because of “jackknifed tractor-trailers” and “rubbernecking.” In Buffalo, one car that had skidded into another was not a novelty worthy of slowing down to gape at. (Also, twenty minutes was considered a long commute back home, and rush hour meant that you went fifty mph instead of sixty.) Furthermore, I knew what “double parking” was from seeing folk stopped outside the post office while they ran inside to mail a letter, but New York City is clearly the birthplace of triple and quadruple parking.

  With such traffic density, one might wonder why more commuters don’t try to carpool or share taxis. This is because New Yorkers all think they know the best way to go. If you see three New Yorkers get into a car and not argue about the best way to go then a bank robbery has just occurred.

  But New Yorkers do generally agree on how to drive, if not the best route to take. Here are a few rules of the road:

  1. Always drive through a yellow light and the opening seconds of a red light to avoid being hit from behind. Also, drive through the intersection fast to avoid being cut off and hit from the side.

  2. With regard to signaling a turn or lane change, once again we have “don’t ask, don’t tell.” If you warn people that you want to change lanes, they’ll just speed up so you can’t.

  3. There isn’t any north and south, just uptown and downtown. East and west are crosstown.

  4. Making eye contact revokes your right of way. When no one will make eye contact the car with the most body damage automatically has the right of way.

  5. Things in other cities that mean “stop” or “slow down” in New York City mean “go as fast as you can” – for example, sirens, honking horns, yellow lights, bleeping subway doors, and street vendors yelling “check it out.”

  6. Don’t bother looking for speed limit signs. People just go as fast as they can.

  7. There’s no Main Street in Manhattan. The avenues are clogged enough as it is without designating one as the

  primary thoroughfare.

  8. Crosswalk creep. Drivers waiting for the light to change move as far into the crosswalk as possible so pedestrians must negotiate oncoming traffic or else walk over the hoods of cars.

  9. New York City doesn’t allow right turns on red. What it has instead are left-hand turns from the far right-hand lane.

  10. When driving crosstown don’t be surprised to see pedestrians making better time.

  To those who complain about the overpriced, overcrowded bridges and tunnels, I’ve heard these philosophical responses: “It’s better than swimming” and “A reason to have good brakes.” The Lincoln Tunnel received a big online shout-out from a traveler who declared it “not as infuriating as the Holland Tunnel.” On the plus side, you pay a toll only to enter Manhattan. It’s free to leave. After a few days here no one has any money left and so the city no longer wants them.

  The past three decades you’ve needed to be a certified etymologist and puzzle expert to understand the 250-word street-parking signs, because to the average driver they look like Sudoku puzzles. There are lawyers, judges, and city officials who specialize in parking. If someone says they work as an interpreter you need to clarify whether it involves the United Nations or parking. Motorists who’ve been issued parking tickets regularly attempt to employ the defense that the signs are purposely made to confuse drivers. Looking at a parking sign on the streets of New York you could easily mistake it for what we’re used to seeing on the wall in an eye doctor’s office. This can make the considerably less cryptic signs saying don’t even think of parking here! a welcome sight.

  In addition to comprehending the signs, one needs to know on which days the alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules are suspended (so vehicles don’t need to be moved for the street sweeper), and
there are more than forty of them, including the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succoth, Shavuot, Purim, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah; the Asian Lunar New Year; the Hindu festival of Diwali; ten Christian holidays, including the Ascension, All Saints Day, and the Immaculate Conception; and the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr. If you don’t have a good memory then mark your calendar!

  With regard to incomprehensible parking signs and garbled subway announcements I’ve often thought: I was born in this state, speak the native tongue, scored well on the reading comprehension section of the SAT, received a National Honor Society Scholarship to college, and I can’t understand one word of this. What chance does someone from Buenos Aires or Zimbabwe have? Although one can make a case that

  oftentimes it’s preferable to be in the dark. Bus announcements are perfectly clear and at regular intervals state, “Bus operators are protected by New York State Law. Assaulting a bus driver is a felony.”

  I’ve known outlaw parkers who carry garbage cans with holes cut in the bottom and place them atop fire hydrants. To be fair, about one-quarter of the city’s hydrants have been defunct since the 1980s and ’90s yet remained in place a decade or two later. Some drivers enlist another person to stand in an empty parking spot until they arrive in the same way they get someone to stand in line for them at the DMV or for Shakespeare in the Park tickets. I have friends who have spent the equivalent of weeks sitting in their cars reading newspapers while waiting for the street sweeper to pass or the metered parking period to end. (It was considerably more punishing before electronic devices made phone calls and video games possible.) The newspaper was a signal to other parking-place hunters that, “No, I’m not leaving, I’m waiting, so don’t bother asking.” New York author Calvin Trillin captured the thrill of the park in his novel Tepper Isn’t Going Out, possibly the only literary entry in the “parking genre.”

  In an episode of Seinfeld called “The Alternate Side,” George Costanza causes gridlock, interrupts a movie shoot, and prevents an ambulance from reaching an unconscious man, while he moves cars from one side of the street to the other. In another episode, our problem parker George stops before backing into a space to pontificate on what a terrific parallel parker he is, while another guy starts driving into the space front first and a never-ending altercation ensues over the rightful ownership of the spot. Regarding the limited inventory of spaces and resulting tight squeezes, if you can parallel park it here, you can parallel park it anywhere. Forget singing-and-dancing TV talent contests and truckers who drive on icy roads, we’re eagerly awaiting Parkers of New York.

  The worst job in New York City has to be the production assistant whose task it is to find and reserve parking spaces for the many trailers and trucks needed for the zillions of commercials, television shows, and movies being shot every day. This poor person is directly between the New Yorker and his or her parking spot, subject to being

  cursed at in every language, spat upon, and even threatened with hot coffee or a tire iron.

  The Department of Transportation recently announced that they’re overhauling the parking signs to “make people less crazy.” There’s a Catch-22 about the whole enterprise: Any driver believing himself sane enough to understand parking in New York must be insane to want to try and park there in the first place.

  On the subject of less or more crazy, thousands of pedestrian-operated push buttons to speed light changes at intersections were deactivated in the 1970s and yet purposely remain in place so that New Yorkers can feel participatory and manage their frustration. Similarly, Manhattan is supposed to be the walking capital of the world with its easy-to-navigate grid and pedestrian-friendly spaces; however, most of the traffic lights are set to favor automobiles and halt foot travelers at every corner.

  A true walking utopia would regulate the sidewalks like highways with a fast lane on the outside for regular New York speed walkers and a slow lane on the inside for shoppers, window gawkers, tourists, the inebriated, and folks with dogs, strollers, and small children. Uptown travelers on one side of the street, downtown on the other. Stopping short needs to be punishable by fines and imprisonment. Suddenly coming to a halt on a city street can cause a twenty-person pileup with coffee and pizza slices splattered everywhere.

  Tourists might take a tip from the whimsical New York children’s rhyme “Cross at green, not in-between, cross at red, and you’ll be dead,” but the fact is that everyone in New York jaywalks. This is the best way to navigate traffic because you’re required to use all of your senses and not follow the directives of a machine. Or as Ratso Rizzo defiantly proclaims in Midnight Cowboy: “Hey! I’m walkin’ here!” Old folks leaning on canes jaywalk. People pushing children in strollers jaywalk. Dog walkers jaywalk. Seeing eye dogs leading blind people jaywalk. Even the cops jaywalk. Add to that jay jogging, jay biking, jay Rollerblading, and jay skateboarding. Whereas in the Bible “the quick and the dead” means those who sin will be judged by Jesus Christ whether they are alive (quick) or in the afterlife (dead), in New York

  the phrase just means quick or dead. A populace regularly celebrated for its quick wit and sarcasm should actually be renowned for its quick reflexes and near misses.

  Jaywalking in this city is considered an art form, like subway “pre-walking,” where you stroll to the exact spot on the platform to board the car that will save you the most time upon exiting. I’m always stunned when I visit European cities and see locals waiting at lights with no traffic in sight. Once when I received a ticket for jaywalking in San Diego I thought I was being punked and looked around for a camera.

  I guess that technically it’s illegal in New York too, but then so is riding a bike on the sidewalk and I don’t see anyone getting a ticket for that. Still, jaywalking is not what kills people in this city, it’s texting while walking. If you glance out of a window at night the columns of pedestrians crossing at every street corner with faces buried in glowing phones appear to be one long candlelight procession.

  A few years back, crosswalk signals with walk spelled in white and don’t walk illuminated in red were replaced with ones based on the international version of a white man walking and a red hand indicating “stop.” No matter the version, it’s common knowledge that the fastest way to die is by paying attention to these signs. Aside from these new signs being a statement on the decline of literacy, New Yorkers can no longer say, “I’ll meet you at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk.” Well, you could, but you’d be dating yourself, like the people who still call the MetLife building above Grand Central the Pan Am Building. Old-timers like my father, who persisted in saying he was off to see “a talkie at the Nickelodeon” well into the 1990s, continued to refer to JFK Airport as Idlewild a half century after the name had been changed. And really ancient New Yorkers, like my grandfather, could recall when men gave up their bus and subway seats to women.

  The new walk/don’t walk signs are also bright. Not that New Yorkers ever needed an excuse to wear sunglasses at night, since the sun never sets on the cool, but now they have one. I’m not sure if a pedestrian is more likely to be hit by a car due to temporary blindness than if there were no sign at all. When flying up from Florida you start

  seeing the blazing signals dotting the island from around Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, just before the Empire State Building comes into view.

  When my dad was young there were no walk/don’t walk signs, nor were there yellow lights – they just went directly from red to green. Apparently, pedestrians were skinnier, smarter, and more agile back then. They didn’t need a countdown clock to determine whether they could make it across a street. Still, though dexterity and personal responsibility have been lost, a sense of humor survives. Young people like to partially tape over the red hand signs so they’re giving pedestrians the finger.

  Most New Yorkers remain philosophical about transportation delays and are comfortable with the fact that oftentimes you must travel east in order to go west or uptown to go do
wntown. It’s no coincidence that the novel Up the Down Staircase takes place in New York. It’s a city full of surprise and mystery, the surprise being that you arrived at your destination at all and the mystery being how you eventually got there.

  Chapter 5

  Rental Illness

  When people say, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” they are usually talking about New York. Despite having the highest violent crime rate in the nation when I arrived, New York also had the highest cost of living. A tiny apartment could easily devour more than half of one’s salary, and so, unable to afford the skyscraper high rents, I’d moved in with my grandfather on Long Island. Commuting meant rising around 3:30 a.m., getting a ride to the train station, catching the Long Island Rail Road to Pennsylvania Station, taking a subway to Wall Street, then another subway to New York University in Greenwich Village, another subway back to Penn Station, the train to Huntington, and a taxi back to the apartment at about 11:30 p.m. If you’ve ever wondered about people who can sleep anywhere, even standing up, this is one way of learning how to do it. Thank goodness Huntington was at the end of the line since more than once I awoke in the train yard.

  Pennsylvania Station is between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan and directly below Madison Square Garden, which is home to the New York Rangers and the New York Knicks. Manhattan seems to go through Madison Square Gardens the way Donald Trump goes through wives. The first two venues (1879 and 1890) were located on Madison Square on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue. The second MSG was designed by architect Stanford White’s famous New York firm McKim, Mead and