TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/091790/0917107.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.1 KB | 201 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 49

COVER STORIES

What Makes New Yorkers Tick


In America's toughest city, even Mother Teresa tries to get a
little edge

By Calvin Trillin

[Calvin Trillin has been a "resident out-of-towner" in Manhattan
for nearly 30 years, an experience that he says is unrelated
to the title of his forthcoming book, Enough's Enough (and
Other Rules of Life).]


    In the first place, we have more weird-looking people in New
York City than can be found in any other American city. Also,
more rich people. We have so many rich people that I once came
to the conclusion that other cities were sending us the rich
people they wanted to get rid of ("Listen, if Frank down at the
bank doesn't quit talking about how much his Jaguar costs,
we're just going to have to put him in the next shipment to New
York"). Some of the weird-looking people and some of the rich
people are the same people. Why would a rich person want to
look weird? As we New Yorkers like to say, Go know.

    When I moved to New York, back in 1961, I remember saying
that 90% of the people walking along the street in Manhattan
would be interviewed in any other town, and the other 10% would
be arrested. It's got a lot weirder since then.

    Of course, it's got weirder everywhere since then. But
someone in a silly getup in Houston or Cleveland or Denver has
to be aware that everyone is looking at him. If a 300-lb. man
costumed as Eleanor of Aquitaine walks onto a crosstown bus in
New York carrying both an attache case and a rib roast, the
other passengers might glance up for a second, but then they'd
go back to their tabloids. If you asked the driver why he
didn't seem to be registering such a sight, he'd say, "Hey,
whadaya -- kidding? I seen a million guys like that. You think
I'm some kinda farmer or something?"

    So if you're making a list of how New Yorkers differ from
other Americans -- even other city dwellers -- write "funny
looking" near the top. Also write "jaded" or maybe "blase": New
Yorkers have seen a million guys like that no matter what the
guy is like. We've seen everything. We've seen everybody. We
are not impressed. The common response of New Yorkers to the
presence of the President in their city is not excitement but
irritation. His motorcade is going to tie up traffic. He may
think he's in town to address the United Nations or raise money
at one of those fat-cat banquets at the Waldorf, but as far as
New Yorkers are concerned, he is there to cause them
aggravation. And why, as a matter of fact, is the United
Nations in New York? Also to cause aggravation, this time by
taking up a lot of curb space with diplomatic-plates-only
parking zones. In the minds of true New Yorkers, an awful lot
that happens in the world happens to cause them aggravation.
In fact, "aggravation," in that particular usage, is basically
a New York word. I know there are people who think it's a
Yiddish word -- nobody thinks it's an English word -- but a
Yiddish word and a New York word are the same thing. It's true
that you can detect an Italian bounce to some New York phrases,
and it's true that white students at expensive Manhattan
private schools are as likely as Harlem teenagers to shout
"Yo!" when they come across a friend, but I think the basic
structure and inflection of the language New Yorkers speak owe
their greatest debt to Yiddish. The only purely New York word
I can think of -- cockamamie -- sounds Yiddish, even thought
it isn't. It means ridiculous or harebrained and is commonly
used in such phrases as "another one of the mayor's cockamamie
schemes."

    A scheme thus classified was launched some years ago by the
then mayor, Edward Koch, who had come back from China smitten
with the idea of bicycle transportation. He had protective
strips of concrete installed to create a bicycle lane up Sixth
Avenue. As someone who schlepps around (as we say here) on an
old Raleigh three-speed, I was pathetically grateful for the
bike lane myself; I suppose that shows that no matter how long
I live in New York, I am, at heart, an out-of-towner. The
cabdrivers, of course, hated it ("He likes China so much, he
shoulda stood in China"). Some storekeepers hated it. But who
complained most bitterly about the bike lanes? The bicyclers.
The true New York bicyclers complained that the bike lane was
full of pedestrians and garment-center pushcarts and people who
schlepped around on Raleigh three-speeds. And slush. "It's
October," I said to the bicycler who made that complaint;
"there's no slush in October." "When there's slush," he said,
"the bike lane will have slush."

    The bike-lane episode reminds me that you'd better put
"contentious" near the top of that list, right under "funny
looking." (Not just "funny looking," come to think of it, but
also "funny": New York is the only city I've ever been in where
almost everyone you meet on the street considers himself a
comedian -- a fact brought home to me a couple of years ago
when a panhandler near my subway stop said to me, "Can you
spare some change? I'd like to buy a few junk bonds.") In the
matter of contentiousness, I once tried to indicate the
difference between New York and the Midwest, where I grew up,
by saying that in the Midwest if you approach someone who is
operating a retail business and ask him if he has change for
a quarter, he is not likely to call you a fascist. He is
certainly not going to say, "G'wan -- get lost." He would never
say, "Ya jerky bastard, ya."

    New Yorkers are not polite. If you asked a New York
cabdriver why he wasn't more polite, he might say something
like, "Polite! Where do you think you are -- Iowa or Indiana
or one of them?" New York cabdrivers do not usually bother to
distinguish among states that begin with I.

    Earlier this year, some booster organization in New York got
the idea of launching a campaign to make New Yorkers more
polite. Talk about cockamamie ideas! What are they -- crazy?
Do they think this is Illinois or Idaho or someplace? In the
first place, the whole idea of a booster organization is as
foreign to New York as Girl Scout cookies. (Yes, I know that
thousands of Girl Scout cookies are sold every year in places
like Queens and Staten Island. You think I'm a farmer or
something?) I have never heard of a New York Chamber of
Commerce. If it exists, I suspect it spends most of its time
putting out press releases about aggravations. Also, telling
New Yorkers not to be rude is the equivalent of telling
Neapolitans not to talk with their hands: it could render us
speechless.

    I don't think there's anything particularly surprising about
the level of rudeness in New York. A lot of it is just show.
New York has been portrayed in so many books and movies and
stand-up acts that the stock characters know how to behave
badly. They've all read their press clippings. The Jewish deli
waiter knows what to say to an out-of-towner who asks if he
could get a pastrami sandwich ("When I'm ready, I'll get" or
"Listen, the pastrami here I wouldn't wish on Arafat"). The
Irish cop knows how to act like an Irish cop who does not go
overboard in showing respect to the citizenry. Some of the
newer stock characters, like the Korean greengrocer and the
Indian news dealer, aren't certain how to act yet -- there
haven't been enough movies about them -- but when they do get
it all hardened into a New York shtick, I rather doubt that
they're going to sound like the flight attendant of the month.

    Also, I believe rudeness tends to vary in direct proportion
to the size of the city, so it's only natural that the largest
city is the rudest. It isn't just that the little daily
irritations tend to build up in a large city faster than they
do in a small town; it's the anonymity. In a small town, what
you shout at someone who makes a sudden turn in front of you
without a signal is limited in nastiness by the realization
that you might find yourself sitting beside that person the
next day at the Kiwanis lunch or the PTA meeting. If the town
is small enough, the chance that you'll never see the offending
party again is nonexistent. That puts a sort of governor on
your behavior. In New York, the odds are almost the opposite;
you are almost certainly not going to see that person again.
The governor is removed. Knowing that, you might do a lot worse
than "Ya jerky bastard, ya."

    Not you? Yes, you. Right at the top of the list you should
write down that there's nothing genetic about any of this. New
Yorkers weren't born that way. A lot of New Yorkers weren't
even born in New York. Some of them were born on farms. I was
born in Kansas City. If you moved to New York, you'd be a New
Yorker, and you'd act like a New Yorker. You'd only glance for
a moment at the guy costumed as Eleanor of Aquitaine. You'd
scheme to get the last seat on the subway car. You'd become a
comedian. You might even use harsh language with taxi drivers.
You wouldn't behave that way? Well, how about Mother Teresa?

    Mother Teresa! Right. In Calcutta, Mother Teresa is probably
an absolute pussycat, but if she moved to New York, she'd be
a New Yorker. A couple of years ago, I started to use a true
story about Mother Teresa to illustrate how all New Yorkers,
living in what I believe could be considered a rather
challenging environment, find themselves trying to get a little
edge. Around 1987, Mayor Koch was briefly hospitalized with a
slight stroke, and a few days later he got a surprise visit
from Mother Teresa, who happened to be in town to establish a
hospice. She told him he had been in her prayers, and he took
the occasion to say that New York was grateful for her presence
and that she should let him know if there was any way he could
be of assistance. She said that as a matter of fact, there was
one thing he might do. It would be helpful at the hospice to
have a reserved parking spot. So envision this scene: here is
Mother Teresa, perhaps a saint, making a sick call on a man who
has just had a stroke -- and she's trying to hustle him for a
parking spot. You've got to say it's a tough town.