... a New Yorker’s heart leaps at the possibilities. Imagine using these to give locals a way around and through Times Square. You could bypass the tourist sidewalk hoggers, the smartphone starers, the matinee meanderers, the leafletters and hawkers, the desnudas with their oglers, the Elmos and Minions and all the other human and humanoid boulders that make the crossings choppy and all but impassable at the Crossroads of the World.Hey, "New Yorker." The New York fast lane is stay the fuck out of Times Square. And what's up with "heart leaps"?! If you have a heart that leaps, don't try to palm yourself off as a New Yorker.
And I'm speaking as someone who lived in NYC for more than 10 years and who has been literally punched for stopping to look at a map on Park Avenue.
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NYC is not for people who don't like NYC. People who like it as a spectacle, like Disneyland or the Grand Canyon, can have fun there briefly.
Legend has it that the cab's intrusion into that scene was real and unplanned, and that Hoffman's "I'm walkin' here!" was his natural reaction, filter through the character he was submerged in.
I'm glad you got punched. Probably more like a push or shove, but get out of the fucking way!
You were punched for looking at a map? Look out, Baltimore--there's a contender for the nickname "Charm City."
Times Square pedestrian life is like football. It is not a contact sport, it's a collision sport.
Troll displays stupidity and ignorance LOL !
From the comments of that article: Link.
Everything has been done before.
I managed a movie theater in Times Square for a couple of years in the late seventies. MY heart did a lot of leaping.
I thought our Visitor would've been more at home in the "Change in sense of humour 'a sign of impending dementia" thread.
Or maybe the 'Bobbit' one.
You know.
Because.
I am Laslo.
Think of the sidewalk police jobs it would create!!
Manhattan is a tough place to live. At least the crazy parts are.
Much of Brooklyn is very beautiful with brownstones and laughing children and parks and quiet nights. It can be damn near idyllic.
Not all NYC is the depressing midtown hustle bustle rat race.
Why not?
Because pedestrian fast lane police.
What happens when a person walking really fast catches up to someone walking fast?
It's like the HOV lane. You get in it and at some point you are behind someone going 10mph under the speed limit.
Slow people are never considerate of faster people. Putting in a fast lane for walkers isn't going to change that.
@Jeff Gee
I managed a movie theater in Times Square for a couple of years in the late seventies. MY heart did a lot of leaping.
Heh - I feel for ya. How about this, though -- in the mid-70s my Uncle, a NYPD cop, was assigned to Times Square as an undercover cabbie (I kid you not), and his job was to drive around, wait until he was mugged or stuck up, and then catch the perps. I think it lead to a early heart attack in his late 60s. Great guy, loved him.
Manhattan in the 70s was a trip!
I've always been a fast walker, (I'm not a native New Yorker and didn't arrive here until I was 25). I find the idea that all New Yorkers walk fast to be untrue, as I often find myself frustrated at people walking ahead of me at a pace barely noticeable as movement. (I exaggerate, but not by much.) When you have a string of people walking abreast at this near-still pace, it is enough to arouse "walk rage!"
The fast lane would help cut down on street-harassment of womyn.
Or at least they could only be harassed by really fit guys.
JSM
C'mon Bob. Tourists obvi. Working in Rock Center I am swamped with 'em. Occasionally have the pleasure of telling gawpers to gawp from a point out of the central flow of traffic. The big buildings and the bright lights will still be there and visible once they have moved between the mailbox and the lamppost.
They shouldn't be punched, they should be kicked.
"C'mon Bob. Tourists obvi."
Not always. This happens in areas far from the tourist districts...the guilty are often folks I see all the time in my neighborhood.
The real trick when in NYC is figuring out where the subway door will be before the train stops, so you can get in before the doors close.
I think this is the second or maybe third time I've agreed 100% with Cook.
I'm a fast walker by nature, and had to move to NYC to find a pace [sic] where I fit in.
Step one would be to teach people to stay to the right on escalators and moving sidewalks when standing still so as to not obstruct ambulators like myself.
traditionalguy,
Times Square pedestrian life is like football. It is not a contact sport, it's a collision sport.
You stole that line from George Will. Unless he stole it from someone else.
Robert Cook,
Amen! People who walk slowly and expand in groups to fill the whole sidewalk are one of my few indelible peeves. Right up there with people who won't move backwards when I get onto a bus, people who deliberately sit in the aisle seats on the bus (leaving the window seat empty unless I actually ask them to move), and cyclists who prefer the sidewalks to the bike lanes right next to them. There's nothing quite like stepping into the bike lane to get out of the way of a cyclist on the sidewalk. Though admittedly that one is a lot rarer in Salem than it was in Novato.
You will conclude from this that I mostly commute on foot or by bus. You'd be correct.
Amexpat,
Step one would be to teach people to stay to the right on escalators and moving sidewalks when standing still so as to not obstruct ambulators like myself.
Oh, that one too. In London they have signs to that effect. Not just in English, but in German. "Rechts stehen!"
High heels slow things down in Midtown.
"The real trick when in NYC is figuring out where the subway door will be before the train stops, so you can get in before the doors close."
A real New Yorker knows, first, that you become familiar with the station, so you know exactly where the doors will be when the train comes to a stop, and second, you hurl yourself into the car even as the doors are closing. Your body blocks the doors from closing completely and the conductor is not supposed to clear the train to proceed until all doors are indicated as closed...so they open the doors and those stuck betwixt and between are freed to enter the train.
In London they have signs to that effect. Not just in English, but in German. "Rechts stehen!"
Shouldn't that be "links stehen"?
And I'm speaking as someone who lived in NYC for more than 10 years and who has been literally punched for stopping to look at a map on Park Avenue.
Hmmm--wonder if that was me....
Even worse than people who stop on sidewalks are people who stop in doorways. They should be punched out and left in an alley for the rats.
tim maguire said...
Slow people are never considerate of faster people. Putting in a fast lane for walkers isn't going to change that.
With a fast lane the slow people would know to get in the fast lane to slow down fast people and get punched.
Robert Cook: "I've always been a fast walker, (I'm not a native New Yorker and didn't arrive here until I was 25). I find the idea that all New Yorkers walk fast to be untrue, as I often find myself frustrated at people walking ahead of me at a pace barely noticeable as movement. (I exaggerate, but not by much.) When you have a string of people walking abreast at this near-still pace, it is enough to arouse "walk rage!"
At long last, common ground.
I was always a fast walker until one day I wasn't. Even when I was a fast walker, I didn't find it all that difficult walking around slower moving people. It's not like looking to find daylight in a Big Ten line.....It does seem, however, that sidewalk rage is more of a NYC trait than fast walking. There's a lot of subliminal anger here that's just looking for a belli causa.
Robert Cook said...
"The real trick when in NYC is figuring out where the subway door will be before the train stops, so you can get in before the doors close."
A real New Yorker knows, first, that you become familiar with the station, so you know exactly where the doors will be when the train comes to a stop...
A real New Yorker knows where the exit stairs are at the stop they're going to and get on the train at the doors that will be right in front of those stairs when they get off.
Has anyone proposed 'rat-lanes?'
They may be getting tired of living in the sewers and subways. Watch 'em come alive at dusk.
Also have I told you what shit this is?
If you have a heart that leaps, don't try to palm yourself off as a New Yorker.
Please. Why were you put on this earth?
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