Everything real New Yorkers hate about New York

Concrete jungle where dreams are crushed by blizzards and sweltering heat

I grew up in New York City – yes, the setting of every subpar romantic comedy, and 90’s sitcom.

For every non-native New Yorker, I know what you’re thinking, you love New York. You spent two weeks there doing an internship or something of the sort and it was the greatest experience of your life.

But New Yorkers, and yes, proper New Yorkers, not foreign start-up workers in Williamsburg, have a love-hate relationship with the city they call home.

In most ways, New York is everything it’s made out to be in the movies and TV shows, but living in the city is the only way to understand how unbearable it can be sometimes.

Photographed by Allegra Toran

Even when you’re naked in summer it’s too hot

NYC Summer life hack: Don’t have a pool? Swim in your own sweat. There’s nothing quite like summer in New York City. There’s ice cream trucks on every corner, kids running through sprinkler systems, the wafting scent of trash drifting through the breeze, and the heat of a thousand suns.

Doesn’t it sound delightful? Summer is just three months of looking like you’re the champion of a wet t-shirt contest, having your makeup literally melt off your face, and hopping bodega to bodega to mooch off of their air conditioning. If you go outside the humidity will suffocate you, and mosquitoes will eat you alive.

Honestly, it would be bearable if there were a pool or a beach, but going to either of these things is a struggle. The lines to get into public pools are horrendous (talking about you Lasker Pool) and people are just packed onto the beach like sardines: Coney Island specifically.

Photographed by Allegra Toran

Winter is the blizzarding world of Bill de Blasio

If summer isn’t enough to make you say “no thanks” to New York City, then wait until you hear about winter. Against all odds, I have lived through several New York winters and let me tell you, they are no wonderland. When the snow falls, it quickly turns into black ice of death which will slip on.

The bit of fluffy snow that there is becomes brown sludge that gets sloshed around by busses. Also, snow days don’t exist. I can distinctly remember the crushing feeling of the mayor saying that school would be open during every. single. snow storm. Not only would I struggle to get to school alive, but I would have none of my homework done because I thought I would have the day off. So, as you can tell, for the youth of New York, snow storms are just a lose-lose situation.

Photographed by Zoya Prousline

Public Transport is absolutely dire

The New York City Subway is the only place to simultaneously get your groove on, listening to a wide variety of subway performers, shout out to the Native American flute band in Grand Central, and see a rat the size of a bear. The trains are delayed every day, and it’s crowded every day.

Don’t even get me started on that dreaded message that the train is going to be running express. If you’re running late, you might as well just cancel your plans because you won’t make it until the next day. The worst part is the government has the nerve, nay, the audacity to raise the price. Everyone in the city shed a few tears when the price went up to $2.75, and there’s speculation that it will go up to $3.00 in the near future. Yes, folks, we are going to be paying $3.00 for a one way ride to watch a homeless man masturbate during our morning commute – I have actually seen this. It is no joke.

Photographed by Allegra Toran

Gentrification is destroying local businesses and replacing it with frustratingly good coffee

One of the worst things about New York City is seeing its neighborhoods, notably in Brooklyn and Harlem, become gentrified. You can easily joke about the weather and how annoying the subway is, gentrification is actually a serious issue in the city. Small businesses and mom and pop shops, which are the heart and soul of certain neighborhoods, are consistently being shut down and replaced by a Whole Foods or luxury apartment complex.

The wealth gap in New York is enormous: some of the world’s richest people live on the Upper East Side, but a hundred blocks further uptown, families are being pushed out of their homes because the rent is too high. Come on, how many more hipster coffee shops can you put in Bed Stuy and Williamsburg?

Photographed by Allegra Toran

Why do all tourists think Times Square is so great?

You can always tell when someone isn’t from New York, because they walk really slow, don’t j-walk, and actually want to go to Times Square. I don’t know what I dislike more about Times Square, the fact that the only special thing about it is the abundance of creepy people dressed up as Elmo, or that it’s an actual tourist attraction.

There’s nothing there that you can’t find in another neighborhood, unless you’re particularly fond of musical theater. New York City is a year-round tourist destination, it always has been and probably always will be. Tourists get off the plane, are wowed by the skyline, and proceed to purchase a $5.00 hot dog from a street cart. They’re not even good. Who told you those were sanitary? Sue them.

There’s so much more to New York than the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. Go and explore the other boroughs. Just stop walking so slowly when I’m in a rush.

Photographed by Allegra Toran

I’ve highlighted some of the worst parts about New York City. That said, it will always be my home, and the small annoyances will never match up to all the wonderful things it has to offer.

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