Reader's Digest: New York a Polite City

[DoYouEverWonder]

June 21, 2006, 6:19 AM EDT

NEW YORK -- New Yorkers are a polite bunch. No, really, they are. So says Reader's Digest.

The magazine sent reporters "undercover" to 36 cities, in 35 countries, to measure courtesy. New York was the only American city on the list.

In a city with a reputation for being in-your-face, New Yorkers seem to be expressing themselves with a new one-finger salute: a raised pinkie. In fact, they seem to have even better manners than people in London, Toronto and Moscow.

In its admittedly unscientific survey, the magazine's politeness-police gave three types of tests to more than 2,000 unwitting participants.

The reporters walked into buildings to see if the people in front of them would hold the door open; bought small items in stores and recorded whether the salespeople said "thank you"; and dropped a folder full of papers in busy locations to see if anyone would help pick them up.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-polite-cities,0,1438885.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[NewJeffCT]

1. I was on Wall Street last week & found people very nice

Which surprised me. I was expecting folks to be a bit more ruthless there. I've rarely had problems with people in NYC, but this was my first trip to Wall Street.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. As a New Yorker, this doesn't surprise me in the least

I think what people usually interpret as "rude" (and especially people from the American South and rural areas) is the speed and pace of New York. Yes, shit moves fast. Yes, we like to curse. Yes, the insult is an artform. But generally speaking, we're just folks, too. Folks moving at a different speed, sure, but just folks. Go to Brooklyn on a snowy day and you see strangers pushing each other's cars out. The pretention of some in non-urban areas that community closeness doesn't happen in cities is really the most insulting and despicable nonsense. Whenever I hear some small towner in a small town where there's been a murder say "You expect this stuff to happen in new York City, but not here" I want to reach through the television with a big fuck you.

[nick303]

3. The city's nature has changed over the last decade or so.

It isn't really the tough place it used to be.

[iamahaingttta]

4. After 9/11,

New York became the gentlest place on the planet. Seriously! A lot of the brusqueness has returned, but, yes, we still are quite polite.

As long as you don't try to waste a New Yorker's time, she or he will be most helpful. Time and space are the most important commodities here, and so long as they are not interfered with, we'll give ya anything!