The next time you see a rat crawl out of some hot garbage, or you
find yourself sleeping with ice packs in your pillow 'cause it's too hot
and your AC is out, or
you end up jammed in an elevator with 20 other people,
just think of how great it actually is here, and how many things NYC
actually gets right. Think of this list of 23 things NYC does way better
than anywhere else.
Pizza
If anybody disagrees, they’re just flat out wrong. Especially if that anybody
is from Chicago.
Walking
A few things here: first, if you’ve ever been behind a tourist, then you
know they clearly never graduated from walking school in Italy. Second,
we can and will walk anywhere we want; there’s almost nowhere that we
couldn’t get to if we wanted to, by walking. Third, there’ve been
studies done about how it
makes us live longer. And finally (and perhaps the most indisputably), we’re BY FAR the best jaywalkers anywhere in the world. Period.
Transportation
If you take a step back from the rage-inducing subway rides you take
every morning, you can actually see that our subway system is an
efficient, 24/7 (GFY Boston), widespread (except from Williamsburg to
other parts of Brooklyn) beast that (90% of the time) gets you where you
need to be, on time. Also, have you ever tried to get a taxi in another
city? Nightmare.
Brunch
Whether they're all-you-can-drink
boozy brunches, party brunches,
regular brunches,
religious brunches,
pop-ups only open for brunch, or
totally illegal brunches, we've got brunch pretty much locked down.
Complaining
You could look at this as a flaw, or you could totally look at this as
us having an insatiable appetite for the best, and we refuse to settle.
We're gonna go with the latter.
Bagels
If you’ve ever lived in another city, then you know. Yeah, there’s
probably something about the water, but there’s also probably something
about
us just being better at making them, too. (
Montreal, you're cool, but you're kind of a fake contender.)
Hot people
We’re gonna go ahead and lump fashion and style in here too, because we’re also the best at those.
Local news
1010 WINS and NY1/Pat Kiernan alone could make us better than anywhere else, but the
Post and
Daily News also offer a nice, bonkers counter-balance with an amazing pun game. Also, we’re not necessarily claiming it, but it is
The NEW YORK Times, after all.
Making the best out of insanely small living situations
Someone in San Diego would probably crumble under the prospect of living
so close to a person they met on Craigslist. But you do it, and you
thrive.
Douchebags
Ours are just better than yours. Sorry,
Miami.
Late-night
Last call is at 4am for EVERY bar, not just
some (like our fat little tag-along brother, Chicago). And
even after that -- after the rest of the country would have long been in their tiny race car beds with
Transformers sheets -- there are great, like
actually great,
places to go if you want to.
Law & Order
Go home
NCIS,
CSI,
Hawaii Five-0, and all the other crappy, non-NYC-based procedurals.
Rooftops
What we lack in porches, backyards, and other nature-adjacent spaces (that’s what those are called, right?),
we make up for in rooftops. There’s nothing as great as looking over the city in the Summer. Also,
we have like a billion of them.
Having tiny, microspecific districts
We’ve got stretches of just a few city blocks
that've managed to create solid identities.
Some are historical (like the Fur District and Meatpacking), but others
are less formal and not-historical, like the Lamp Shade District on the
Bowery. Oh, and who could forget the Fake Sports Jersey District around
26th St?!
Black and white cookies
Half Moons and Harlequins (and whatever else Upstate and New England call these) are just not as good as the
NYC fondant-ified, slightly lemon-y version. If we wanted frosting, we’d just go get a cupcake. Which, by the way, we
also do better than you.
Delivery
Aside from the fact that we
order dinner into our apartments or
the office pretty much every single night, there’s also not a single
thing you can’t get delivered if you wanted to in NYC. Getting it on
time, though? Not so much.
Cocktails
Here’s the thing: other cities have great, individual cocktail bars, or even a nice scene, but for
sheer volume of the
quality here, we’re gonna give the crown to ourselves.
Bar hopping
The combination of a massive amount of options and the fact that no one has to drive makes
bar hopping in NYC easier, less stressful, and more enjoyable than anywhere else.
Sports
Everyone else can shut up -- especially Boston, Philly, and Texas (Texas
is a city, right?). We’ve got two of each major sports team (or will,
when the Islanders move to Brooklyn) with every kind of rooting
interest. Love winners? We have those. Love pitiful losers? We have
those! Love perennial hope (Giants) and perennial hopelessness (Jets)
and annoying smugness (Yankees) and more perennial hopelessness (Mets)?
We've got
all that. Also, championships.
Count 'em.
Culture
You could probably go to a different museum, play, concert, or poetry
reading every single day of the week for the whole year, and never
repeat anything. You probably won’t do that,
but you could.
Dining out
The
restaurant scene here is the best in the world. And sure, we’ve got a few of the
best restaurants anywhere, but the real strength is in the consistency of quality, neighborhood places,
bars that serve food (aka gastropubs), and
unexpected dives. Almost every single one of them has something worthy of making a visit. It just isn’t like that in other places.
Variety
More than any other place in the world, no matter who you are or what you want, if you’re willing to explore, NYC’s got it.
Everything
Maybe we should've started with this one...
Andrew Zimmer is Thrillist's NYC Editor, and he's glad he doesn't live anywhere else. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
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