{"id":187861,"date":"2025-08-30T19:50:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T19:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/187861\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T19:50:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T19:50:52","slug":"its-not-for-everyone-but-we-like-it-this-way-notes-from-the-uws-grump-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/187861\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Not for Everyone. But We Like It This Way \u2014 Notes from the UWS Grump Squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Photographs by Yvonne V\u00e1vra.<\/p>\n

by Yvonne V\u00e1vra<\/strong><\/p>\n

The day had just begun, and I already needed a break from it. I watched with simmering irritation as a blob of tourists oozed out of a bus and into the entrance of Central Park at 72nd Street. I\u2019m grumpy about people who travel in groups of sixty. I\u2019m grumpy about most things in the morning. But these full-bus travelers are a menace. They don\u2019t know where they\u2019re going or why. They feel safe in their herd, which makes them a danger to themselves and others.<\/p>\n

I escaped into the thicket. But after my dog had completed his full investigation of every lingering smell from the night before, my grump wasn\u2019t ready to move on. It dragged me back to one of the benches flanking the park entrance to sit and stew a little longer.<\/p>\n

Another blob of sixty approached \u2014 bursting at the seams, spilling in every direction, with no regard for space or other life forms. And then I heard: \u201cPeople, people \u2014 you\u2019re not the ocean. Be a puddle. Tighten up. Others gotta get by. This is New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the tour guide, and it was love at first sight for me.<\/p>\n

\"\"I braced for the usual speech about John Lennon getting shot in front of the Dakota, and the list of unworthy celebrities denied by the almighty co-op board. But instead, this award-worthy tour guide launched into an ode to the billowing steam rising from the sidewalk at the Dakota\u2019s corner. \u201cDon\u2019t you worry, New York\u2019s just blowin\u2019 off a little steam. That\u2019s how the city works, okay? It\u2019s all underground. Miles and miles of pipes bringin\u2019 energy to the buildings.\u201d She explained that what we were seeing \u2014 and by now I was hanging on her every word \u2014 was condensation from cooler water hitting the hot pipes underground. Or maybe a leaking pipe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatchu think, an old steam stack\u2019s weird or what in a modern city? Listen, we love the stacks. If it wasn\u2019t for \u2019em blowin\u2019 the hot air up, we\u2019d all be gettin\u2019 burnt, okay? It\u2019d be sprayin\u2019 in our faces, okay? If that seems behind the times to you, then maybe New York isn\u2019t for you, okay? It\u2019s not for everyone. But we like it this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

She kept ranting along these lines, and as far as I could tell, no one in the group had said a word to provoke it. It seemed she just needed to let off a little personal steam herself, and we were all here for it.<\/p>\n

After she\u2019d said all there was to say about funnels and pipes, she got the blob moving toward Strawberry Fields. Then she spun around: \u201cOh, and John Lennon got shot there. Moving on!\u201d<\/p>\n

There was not a shred of morning blob grump left in me.<\/p>\n

\"\"As the group wobbled off, I watched the steam drift straight into the windows of the Dakota.\u00a0 Even in multimillion-dollar apartments, you\u2019re still taking in the same gutter breath as the rest of us. You think you made it, but the city\u2019s still gonna cough in your window.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not pretending we\u2019re all in the same boat \u2014 some of us have yachts. The inequality is visible, constant, maddening. So no, the struggles aren\u2019t equal, but some of them are universal.<\/p>\n

A mouse will find its way into your apartment, no matter the price per square foot. Your neighbor will be heard, smelled, and then some. It\u2019s always too hot or too cold, never anything in between. The streets will honk into your ear and trap you in traffic, garbage will pile on your block, the heat will clank, and elevators will be up to no good. No matter how few the steps you still have to take yourself, a New York winter will eventually land you knee-deep in a slush puddle. And no matter how high you make it, there will always be someone higher, right in front of your face. Not to mention the tourist blobs you have to navigate. Ugh, I just mentioned them. They\u2019re making me lose control, you see?<\/p>\n

\"\"The city gets under everyone\u2019s skin, and that\u2019s when it levels us. Just a little. And don\u2019t we carry the disaster like a badge of honor? Like E.B. White already realized in 1949: \u201cNew Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience \u2014 if they did they would live elsewhere.\u201d We want it the hard way. Why? Because we\u2019re harder.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s our social glue. The daily misery reminds us we\u2019re part of a special species that can handle all evils, head held high. Knowing that if I don\u2019t hiss at the tourist blob, one of you will \u2014 that\u2019s the kind of thing that makes me feel warm and comforted, right in the middle of the mess. And we get to complain about it. Oh, the joys of shared grumpiness! It\u2019s a form of belonging all its own.<\/p>\n

That morning at the park entrance, the tour guide took care of us. She tamed a blob, kept it out of our way, and let off a little steam\u2014for all of us. A bit of preventive griping, just in case anyone was thinking of questioning our life choices.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not forget another E.B. White observation: \u201cBut the city makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin\u2014the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan and unparalleled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, in the words of the tour guide of the week: \u201cIt\u2019s not for everyone. But we like it this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Yvonne V\u00e1vra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gr\u00fcnde New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She\u2019s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photographs by Yvonne V\u00e1vra. by Yvonne V\u00e1vra The day had just begun, and I already needed a break…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":187862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5717],"class_list":{"0":"post-187861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-yvonne-vavra"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115119461741377189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}