To absolutely HATE New York

[GreetingsFromVenus]

Dreamed of going there for many years. Thought it would be amazing. Everyone seems to think it is.

Here now and I hate it. Extortionate prices, rude ignorant locals, so many aggressive beggars. mentally ill people shouting in the street. loads of homeless people. The subway stations are disgusting and feel very menacing compared to London.

I find it really depressing actually and feel that the way Hollywood has portrayed New York is all smoke and mirrors. It is nothing special at all IMO. In fact it has a LOT of social issues and it made me feel quite sick to be spending $100 just for a mid range meal for 2 (no dessert) while there were people asking for food outside.

Central Park - pffttt!

Cannot wait to get home next week and will never complain about London prices again!

Anyone else felt the same?

There is something called Paris Syndrome, originally coined by the Japanese to explain the misery of so many tourists upon discovering that Paris bears no resemblance to the movies (or even Emily in Paris!).

If you have images of When Harry Met Sally or Sex in the City etc etc in your head and then experience NY in January in 2022 then you are bound to feel disappointed.

I went the NYC 4 years ago in December and I really liked it. I admit that there were certain things I was a little disappointed with. The zoo in Central Park is tiny, the Christmas decorations shown in all movies were actually in very small pockets (Macy's etc) and in most parts of the city, you wouldn't have know it was a few days before Christmas.
But I loved just walking around and soaking it all in. Food can be as expensive as you want it to be. I had no problem going to a McDonald's to grab a burger while we were out. Our hotel wanted an extortionate amount for food but if we walked 2 mins down the road away from Times Square, we found a lovely diner that did huge portions for about $10 each or less.

I went with DC and am ashamed to say I found it quite boring. People rave about the Highline. It's a rather dull walkway with a bit of very bland planting. The food was hugely overpriced and bad.

DC and DH wanted to spend all day every day in art galleries. I like art but my back was aching as we traipsed round yet another indifferent mid century modernist show. I liked Central Park but didn't see enough of it. I enjoy walking across Brooklyn Bridge, taking the Statten Island ferry and Ground Zero was a fascinating if upsetting visit.

Give me London with boat trips to Greenwich, open air swimming in Hyde Park and concerts on Hampstead Heath, cheap wonderful restaurants and cafes in Chinatown and Soho, free entry to National Gallery and Tates, the Kensington museums etc. Nowhere compares to London (though Budapest comes close.)

Been several times and loved it, but yes it has its good and bad points like all cities. Great museums, shopping, sightseeing, people friendly if you engage with them.

The glass canyon effect is exhausting too. There are no skylines, no vistas unless you climb a building.

@GreetingsFromVenus In your OP, you have basically just described London.

Both London AND NY are great places to visit as a tourist, but I wouldn't live in either one if you paid me, not even if I was rich. Most of the rich/stars/celebs etc have moved out of London, and NY city, because they can't stand what you describe either.

I can't fathom why anyone over 35 would want to live in inner city NYC or inner city London. Especially if they have children.

@PurpleRainlnTheSky what do you class as 'inner city London'...?!

[quote PurpleRainlnTheSky]@GreetingsFromVenus In your OP, you have basically just described London.

Both London AND NY are great places to visit as a tourist, but I wouldn't live in either one if you paid me, not even if I was rich. Most of the rich/stars/celebs etc have moved out of London, and NY city, because they can't stand what you describe either.

I can't fathom why anyone over 35 would want to live in inner city NYC or inner city London. Especially if they have children.[/quote]
I have the opposite opinion. I think London and NYC are both great places to live but can be overwhelming as a tourist, particularly when you only go to the touristy places that every native will avoid like the plague!

I've not RTFT but I think NY is one of those places that needs to get under your skin, particularly if you are more familiar with other parts of the US.

We spent six days there at the end of an extended US holiday which had involved time in various parts of California and Hawaii. I felt a bit of culture-shock upon arriving in New York - it was louder, harsher and faster than the other places and I thought I hated it and couldn't see what the big deal was. After a few days, I got into the rhythm of things and had some amazing experiences. I was really sad to leave in the end and would love to go back - this was over 10 years ago, I couldn't afford an immediate or short-term return trip, then refused to go to the USA while Trump was in office, then covid... but maybe sometime soon!

You experience sounds horrible OP. I have been quite a few times and loved it each time. Not in a sense that I would like to live there, but I have had great times and always felt safe more or less. I am walker though, so only used the metro (which reminds me of a public toilet) a couple of times and I have only been in spring and summer. I can imagine it has a different feel in the midst of winter once all the Christmas cheer is gone. It's also very possible covid has had an effect. I hope they can bounce back as it is a fabulous city in my opinion.

Also, do you really expect places to be like they are in the movies? I mean if people watched for eg Richard Curtis films then came to London there would be crushing disappointment if that was what they were expecting. Life is not the movies and cities are there for people who live there and want to live there, not to fulfil the unrealistic dreams of someone who has seen them in a film and thought that was real life!

I’m so sad to read these comments! I absolutely love NY, I’ve been a few times although last visit was 12 years ago.
I’d been hoping to take my DD when she’s about 7-8 and do the kids stuff with her but wondering if that’s wise now.

@HerRoyalNotness

I love it. Only been twice and last went 3yrs ago over NYE. I follow a blogger that lives there with her family so picked up lots of tips. The kids loved it to, made us feel alive! (We live somewhere really suburban and boring, we’re city folk at heart)

Which Blog please?

My mum left Ireland in the 60s and arrived in New York in January and absolutely hated it. She ended up in California, where I am from.
When I was 20, I moved to New York in January and the moment I arrived, I was like, "Oh WTF have I done?"
January in New York is awful. I hated constantly feeling chased and swallowed up by the buildings' shadows, that fecking cold-ass wind whipping you in the face as you turn a corner, the constant noise and stimulation and in your faceness.
AND YET! I ended up having a deep love for New York in a sort of old auntie you don't have to visit very often sort of way. I love it from a distance, but would die a death living there. There were actual moments of pure magic that reflected what we see in the movies... real moments where Breakfast at Tiffany's came into my every day life. But let's face it, living in New York, you will never have Carrie Bradshaw's gorgeous little apartment tucked inside a gorgeous Brownstone. You'll be lucky if you have a flat as shitty as Jerry Seinfeld's because in New York, a shitty apartment is good enough. I'll never forget my dad standing in my box and saying, "You LIVE in THIS???" And the cockroaches. Can we talk about the cockroaches?
Somewhere between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Seinfeld is the real New York/Manhattan.
What bothers the hell out of me nowadays is that London is going so backward into this way of building upwards, soulless, extortionately priced developments. "Here's your million pound shitty box that's been terribly built by tick one Berkeley Group/St. George/Any other shitty identikit development company.

In the early 90s, I left New York for London and I will never forget how gorgeous I thought London was... so green, so open, your flat was in a lovely house conversion not in some fugly turd of a brown building covered in dark brown glass (there was so much of that in NY in my day). In London, you could see the sky, have a garden, your shitty flat had soul and character. Overwhelmingly though, London was so green to me. Hyde Park didn't instantly make me think, "I hope I don't get raped." The contrast between the concrete jungle of New York and the ability to really escape to the country within a cosmopolitan city like London totally captivated me. I moan a hell of a lot about London, but I'd take it over New York any day of the week.... even though I really can not afford it anymore (I don't think I ever really could, to be fair). London has lost so much of its old soul. But it's still superior to New York, all day long.

"Absolutely HATE..." is a bit strong, isn't it?

Did you stamp your foot and fold your arms crossly after typing it?

You're visiting a major, commercially driven city in the middle of a pandemic, where many people will be working from home and those left won't be creating the bustling vibrancy that would have prevailed a couple of years ago.

It's the same the world over at the moment. I haven't been as far afield on business as NY recently, but a few weeks ago I was in Prague for 3 days and it was absolutely dead - the beggars were more noticeable than usual as the pickings are slim, obviously. A few weeks prior to that I was in Alicante (work again) and it was like a ghost town - even saw actual tumble weed on the outskirts!

It's been on my mind a lot recently as I'm used to doing at least 8+ long haul business trips and 8+ short hauls a year and, bizarrely, I actually miss it. But I'm also well aware things are not the same as they were. Will they ever be?

I live here and agree that you’ve picked a really, REALLY bad time to visit. As PP have said, January is often bitterly cold, and with none of the pre-Christmas excitement, so it’s always my least favourite month.

Also, Omicron has done a number on the city since December. Over the summer and through October/ November life was beginning to feel “normal” again, especially with Broadway reopening and tourists returning. I went to a show in early November and was even happy to see the street performers back in Times Square because it had been such a dead zone for so long. We were beginning to be cautiously optimistic, and then omicron hit.

As others have said, you’ve got 20% of the workforce currently isolating, which has affected many services, and anecdotally I know that a lot of people have reined in social/ unnecessary activities until this wave passes, which probably makes those who have no choice but to be out on the streets/ subway more visible.

You haven’t returned after your rather inflammatory initial post, but if you do and tell us what you like to do, I’d be happy to give recommendations.

And to anyone visiting or thinking of visiting the city this year, you still should! New Yorkers are often direct, but saying “the people are rude” is… well, rude. It’s not for everyone, but I wouldn’t live anywhere else, even now.

I agree about some of it, but "rude ignorant locals"??
I spend a lot of time there and honestly haven't encountered a single one - in fact on my first visit I eventually got a cab just in the hope of finding someone rude to match the image, and he was charm itself too damn it

Good thread for Mumsnet though; the place is notoriously anti-American and some will just love it ...

There isn't much to do in NY that isn't better in London. Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty is it. Everything else is better in London.

NY is alright for a couple of days tops. Go to Miami!

When we visited Paris, we hated it. Busy, overwhelming, confusing, impossible to get our bearing etc. etc. When we LIVED there, it was unadulterated heaven.

I think NYC is similar. Whenever we've gone, we've gone for the "girlfriend experience" approach - Airbnb flat in Brooklyn, local cafes, small bars, food markets, off-the-beaten-track galleries, the High Line etc. rather than trying to "do" New York, which I know would be miserable.

Incidentally, @GreetingsFromVenus , when you say "The US are supposed to be so much bigger and better than everyone else which is why I find it so shocking." that's literally just their own internal propaganda to stop everyone rioting on the streets over the poverty, homelessness, voter suppression and corruption. Nobody else thinks that!

I have to say I completely disagree with you! Like any massive city, it has its share of social problems, crime, grime and dirt. However, love the atmosphere, bars and restaurants, especially those off the usual tourist track. We’ve stayed in Williamsburg too and love it there.

(I do love New York, btw! I just understand what you mean about finding the dirt and business shocking at first glance. Greenwich Village is nice, but (she said, obnoxiously), not as nice as it was 15 years ago. Brooklyn is looooovely.)

@BasketBlocks

I have to say I completely disagree with you! Like any massive city, it has its share of social problems, crime, grime and dirt. However, love the atmosphere, bars and restaurants, especially those off the usual tourist track. We’ve stayed in Williamsburg too and love it there.

I think it's hard on a first visit to convince yourself to get off the beaten track though. First time I went, we did the obvious stuff. In August! Yikes! On subsequent visits (DH is from the East Coast) we've done the less obvious stuff and had much more fun. Williamsburg isn't quite the first place you'd think to visit, but it's fab! :)

@lioncitygirl - Funny isn't it how we all view cities differently? I don't like Miami at all, from the awful run-down airport to the brash glitziness of the city, and I have to say I did feel quite anxious about my safety there. I absolutely LOVED the drive down to Key West and all the little towns and villages on the way. I also like Naples and the Atlantic Coast and the visit to Cape Canaveral was the best ever day trip!

Americans get excited about it because it’s one of the few places in America that’s multicultural

Tell me you know fuck all about the US without saying you know fuck all about the US