I was always told that New York City was a cold place, both literally and figuratively. But when I went there, the air was hot and the people were warm—just seconds after my arrival, as I was making my way up the stairs from the metro onto the street, I saw a guy a few rows ahead of me carrying two big suitcases in each hand. Out of nowhere, two other men showed up by his sides, lifted the suitcases for him, and, after they reached the top together, simply let go and wished him a nice day. Luckily for me, most of my visit felt like that small moment of kindness. I don’t know if that’s what the city is like, but that’s what it can be—and how I will remember it.
I believe that it’s worth seeing your surroundings through the eyes of a tourist: no established routines or old grudges to influence your judgment, just an entirely clear slate. It can really put things into perspective—the good, but maybe also the bad, if the comments are made honestly. So when someone on Reddit asked non-New Yorkers who had visited the city what the weirdest thing about it was that locals don’t even realize, the responses quickly poured in. After all, the Big Apple welcomes more than 50 million travelers every year.
#1
Trash piles on the sidewalks. But I appreciate how neatly the cardboard is packaged.
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#2
Scaffolding literally everywhere, for no apparent reason.
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#3
The honking. Yes, there’s cars everywhere, why are we honking? Not helpful.
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#4
Multiple occasions of strangers getting into heated interactions where they swear and yell at each other for like 10 seconds then just carry on with their day like nothing happened.
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#5
The weirdest thing to me was seeing like a normal store like a CVS or Walgreens and it had an escalator to take you to another floor for more stuff. I get that space is limited, but their stores aren’t normally all that big to begin with.
Another super weird thing is that I saw a million cars, but not a single gas station. I’m used to there being one on basically every busy intersection. I genuinely don’t know how the city operates like that.
Finally, half of our group disappeared in Chinatown. It turns out the women were swept into a secret room that had a fake wall where they showed off counterfeit purses. I ended up with them for one of them and was afraid to touch anything. And I just stared at the camera that was pointing at us while in there.
Image source: Mustang1718, Eden, Janine and Jim/flickr
#6
The what to do in case of choking posters at every bar.
Image source: Odd-Smell-1125, Vryuss/reddit
#7
How corroded the bases of the street lamps are from having dogs pee on them for decades.
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#8
The subway musicians who are genuinely talented but everyone just walks by like theyre invisible – saw a dude absolutely shredding violin down there and people acted like it was elevator music. Also pizza by the slice at 3am being completely normal blew my mind, back home everything closes at like 9pm.
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#9
I love NYC but always feels like I’m on a film set since I know what NYC looks like mostly through films and TV, it’s quite surreal.
The steam coming out of the vents in the road always freak me out too. I still don’t know what they’re for 😂.
Image source: OnlymyOP, Etienne Girardet/UNSPLASH
#10
How insanely convenient everything is in New York compared to other cities. Being able to walk to everything is insane compared to the rest of the country. The things you can access with a short walk would be a drive or a very long hike everywhere else.
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#11
Not really weird, but when my family and I visited NYC during the holidays I noticed that most people wore black or at least very dark colored winter coats/jackets. Even my in-laws, who are native New Yorkers, wore black jackets. I felt that I stuck out like a sore thumb in my bright light blue jacket. I decided that when we return this winter, that I’m gonna get a black jacket too.
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#12
People basically getting bumped by cars as they cross the street and their reaction is to slap the car.
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#13
Having delicious food on every corner.
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#14
I traveled to New York a lot for work a few years ago. Everyone in New York just kind of has a base assumption that everyone either lives in New York or wishes they did. They’d ask when I was moving there the same way people ask newlyweds when they’re going to have a baby. All I had to do was tell them what I paid for rent in Wisconsin and the conversation would end pretty quickly.
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#15
I’m from London so I didn’t find anything weird, but NY has a distinct streak of fun and whimsy that London doesn’t really have. I’m thinking stuff like the Halloween dog parade, or all those people dressing up as pigeons to say goodbye to the Highline pigeon. New Yorkers are also much, much nicer and more extroverted than Londoners.
Image source: HappyDeathClub, PuraV2NY/reddit
#16
How often a street will be closed for filming. And how often, when someone is complaining, someone else says “Welcome to New York”.
Image source: BasqueOne, NotASumoWrestler/reddit
#17
Cops. And cop cars. Everywhere. Literally one on every corner. I’ve travelled all over the world and I have never seen so many cops in one place at one time in my life.
It was like someone had a buy one, get ten free sale on law enforcement personnel.
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#18
Your bike lanes change which side of the street theyre on randomly.
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#19
Subway trains being… literal trains. I thought they were gonna be like a monorail or something. When a loud actual train pulled up I felt dumb but I was also surprised.
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#20
Yoiu have to go inside the library to return books. No curbside drop off. When I asked why, I was told it was to avoid people dropping trash.
Also, no banks were open on Saturday mornings. This was some time ago, but it was quite different in California.
Image source: BasqueOne, Getty Images/unsplash
#21
Just how international it is. A lot of New Yorkers truly don’t stop and think of just how lucky they are to live in a city that’s basically a nonstop world’s fair. I thought Washington DC and Chicago were international, but it’s NOTHING compared to New York City.
Practically every commercial street has restaurants or grocery stores (Korean markets, Jewish/Israeli kosher markets, Arab halal markets, etc) that don’t even have any English on their signs. Even in other fairly international US cities like Washington DC, it’s rare that they won’t even include English on their signs.
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#22
A man collapsed on the ground in front of me as I was on my way to catch a Flix Bus back home out of the city.
Not a single person stopped. Not one but his friend was staring absentmindedly down at him.
I called 911, happened to have food prep gloves and got the guy on his side and within about 2 seconds he began to vomit profusely. Clearly would have choked on his vomit. NYPD & FCPD shows up asks how I know him (don’t obv) and they just take him away.
Some people had been watching and someone told me I saved the guys life. Another said he was “glad to see there are still good New Yorkers.”
Whole situation was weird but nobody stopping bothered me more than I thought it would.
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#23
The water really does make pizza taste different.
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#24
Access to bathrooms.
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#25
The weirdest thing about it is that’s it’s not as weird as US citizens paint it to be.
i’m from south america and grew up watching shows that feed the stereotype of new yorkers being rude and always in a rush. i was shocked to find that it was quite the opposite, in my experience.
ppl are wayyyyyy nicer than they are here. y’all love small talk and telling me about your life. a man saw me struggling to use my metrocard and scanned his phone to pay for my ticket. two ladies walked with me down fifth avenue when i asked for directions. a barista gave me a discount on my coffee just because, and so on.
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#26
The wealth gap really stands out.
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#27
The amount of jay walking.
I live in an area where police would gladly write you a ticket or a car will hit you. In NYC, pedestrian walk signs are like a suggestion.
I understand though. If you waited for every light in nyc, it’d take you twice as long to get there.
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#28
I visited in the summer. Found it odd that the city had kids playing in the streets and neighbors hanging out on the front steps at 3 or 4 in the morning. When I pointed it out to my NY friends I was driving around with, they looked at me like I had 2 heads. Like, of course people are going to be up and about, what else would they be doing?
It is the city that never sleeps.
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#29
None of them seem to know that there’s a statue of Columbus at the center of Columbus circle. I’ve asked around & the funniest one was my brother in law who was there the day before and didn’t believe me until I pulled up pictures.
Weird, but oddly consistent.
Image source: TheRedLions, russellstreet/flickr
#30
My friend sleeps with her windows open in the winter. 5°F and her windows are open like 6 inches. Because if they weren’t, she’d get heat stroke.
Those radiators you can’t control are something else!
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#31
How hot the underground subway stations get in summer.
Image source: black-boots
#32
“Showtime”. Aka when kids and teams do annoying dance routines in the subway train between stations, swinging on the poles, and occasionally kicking people, then hold out their hands for money as a performance fee.
Also small children begging for money on the subway during the day instead of being in school.
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#33
The wetness. Like, not rain wet. Just… other… wets.
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#34
As a non-New Yorker, I was always surprised by some of the vocabulary that New Yorkers use that’s completely normal to them and made no sense to me (from the west coast). Examples: bodega, knish, tri state area, the Hamptons, etc. I visited New York for the first time in high school and was very confused by all of it. For the longest time I thought “the hamptons” was just slang for a rich neighborhood, I didn’t know it was a group of actual seaside communities. .
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#35
Good weird? Bodega cats.
Bad weird? All the rats.
Now that I think about it, perhaps there is a correlation.
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#36
I have been to NYC dozens of times, but I just completed the Manhattan Top to Bottom Challenge where I walked from the Bronx to Battery Park. I covered a lot of ground in neighborhoods I’ve never been in. I couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be a hair salon or barber shop every few feet with a nail salon squeezed in-between.
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#37
When my husband and I went in the ’00’s during the holidays, I couldn’t get over the sheer amount of PEOPLE that were there.
I was fully preparing myself to get shoulder-checked over and over again because it was just wall-to-wall people, but, I was astonished when the people actually moved like a well-worn piece of machinery, just following the natural undulations, kinda like waves.
I never did get shoulder checked, nope, not even close!! It’s pretty amazing how throes of people just avoided each other by paying attention, yet, not really.
Not sure if I’m explaining it correctly, but that’s the gist of it.
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#38
Men catcalling women. I couldn’t believe how rampant it was in NYC.
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#39
How astonishing beautiful certain parts of Central Park are.
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#40
Was walking into Macy’s and this lady with twins in a stroller is behind me I held the door for her. She glared at me.
Then got inside and ended up behind me for the inner door I held it open for her. This time she glared at me and muttered “what the hell is wrong with you.”.
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#41
The condensation from all the window air conditioners raining down on you.
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#42
How little trees there are outside of the parks.
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#43
Okay this one isn’t weird rather it’s kind of magical but NYC is the only place I’ve ever seen it because the city is so uniquely dense. Off leash dog hours in the parks in the early morning happen many places but in NYC between 8-9am there are SO many dogs all just playing together and running around it’s such a joy to see.
When I’m visiting for work, I like to go and just sit and listen to a podcast or something and watch them all have so much fun.
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#44
The street vendors! I remember being there during a massive summer downpour and afterwards, street vendors materialized as if from nowhere.
The stench of urine. I remember walking under a bridge in Central Park and it was like getting hit in the face with a wall of ammonia. Nearly as bad as the bat cave I hiked with a million bats living in it. lol.
Image source: Tirannie
#45
My small Canadian city family visited New York in 2017 and here are a few things we noticed (or rather, in many cases DIDN’T notice):
*I had been home for months when I realized I had not seen a single gas station
*ditto the schools: if you aren’t passing by a school at a time when kids are outside (lunch, recess) you would have no idea it was a school. They just look like any other building.
*parking without bumping another car’s bumper is rare. Waiting in line to get into Live with Kelly and Ryan, I watched an older woman in her massive car from the 70’s find a spot outside the window I was at, and parallel park, backing up until she hit the bumper of the car behind her. Then she got out, grabbed her shopping bags and went on her way.
*moving large items in a city like NY is just on another level. I cannot even fathom moving my furniture into a fourth floor walk up. Or buying a piano and having it swung into my apartment by a crane.
*parking in a lot that has a lift that raises your car in the air. Parking in NY is fascinating to watch.
We had a great time and I genuinely love to visit New York. The logistics of having so many people living in a small area are mind blowing. And yet, you actually have neighbourhoods that feel like traditional neighbourhoods, where people know each other and watch out for each other. Kudos to all NYers who make it such a great city.
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#46
The smellz.
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#47
I (UK) stopped to help someone struggling up subway exit stairs with heavy luggage and my local friends were horrified for my safety.
I hate to break it to you, NYCers, but it’s ludicrous to be in a place where the act of helping is treated like a direct request for personal injury…
Edit to say: this was around 2005 or a little earlier. It may be very different by now.
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#48
Bodegas. I love them so much and miss them whenever I leave NYC.
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#49
Currently in NYC right now (Live in SF) and I want to know where do you keep the homeless? Are you shipping them out to Hawaii on a one way ticket still? Crazy.
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#50
They walk so FAST.
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#51
How much it smells like pee… everywhere, always. We went in spring where at homes things smells like pine and fresh flowers but NY smelled like ammonia and grime.
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#52
How you can be surrounded by millions of people but feel completely alone. The ability to simply turn off your social interactions and feel totally anonymous and unseen is pretty amazing.
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#53
Some people in New York state referring to New York City simply as “The City”. Even when I was Upstate where the nearest city was Albany, when people said “The City” they meant NYC.
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#54
Going to the top of the twin towers and seeing just how much the yellow cabs dominated the streets.
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#55
The number of hobo fights you’ll witness in the subway, and the number of commuters who will pretend it isn’t happening at all.
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#56
How dirty and old it is. If I didn’t know I’d think its a very poor city.
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#57
The VERY pushy guys at Central Park — we had a pedicab driver and a guy with a horse and carriage get into a FIGHT over who would take us through the park. We just said “uhhh we’re walking” and skedaddled.
The smell is not weird. Every big city smells the same horrible way.
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#58
I live in a small rural town where it’s kind of easy to be a biggish fish in a small pond. When I’m in NYC, I just feel like I’m surrounded by brilliant achievers. Not that every New Yorker is such a person, but it’s certainly a place where the brightest and best in their fields can climb to great heights. I can feel that kind of intelligence in the air of Manhattan. It’s intellectually invigorating to me.
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#59
Stepping into the street before crossing.
Just the craziness of crossing the street in general.
So many one way streets.
Paying $30 to park your car in a garage.
Car elevator garages.
Dedicated Bagel Shops. .
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#60
I’m a retired firefighter and for me the thing that hit me was that not even pedestrians yield for responding emergency vehicles! I absolutely can’t imagine being a apparatus operator in that city.
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#61
Went to NYC in 2018 for a week. Main culture shocks for me as someone who has lived only in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas
-Children unaccompanied on the subway
-Herds of people suddenly showing up on the sides walks
-Lack of Public bathrooms? Could have just been the area we were in. But I almost soiled myself at one point because I could not find a public bathroom for like 8 blocks 😭.
-The traffic was crazy, but public transit was excellent. Down south we don’t have the public transit accessibility that NYC has. Even in debugger cities, we wore out the Subway and Bus system that week lol.
Image source: Eened
#62
New York style pizza. A single large slice of thin crust, folded in half, served on a paper plate, eaten with your hands while standing up at a small round table with no chairs, in 45 seconds or less.
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#63
The water towers on all the roofs.
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#64
How normal it is to just not react to anything… sirens, chaos, someone yelling at the air everyone just keeps walking like it’s background noise.
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#65
Delis across the street from delis.
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#66
I’d like to add that the buildings create wind canyons.
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#67
How complex the subway system is! Every other major city has a simple subway system, which each line labeled by colors or given a name. NYC’s is like 1,2,3,4,5,6,B,Z,R,P,Q,S,Z and it makes no sense.
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#68
Honestly, just NYC people thinking how weird and cool and different they (and their city) are. It’s a city. A crowded, expensive city. It’s really not that impressive .
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#69
Honestly it’s how you pronounce “Houston”. If NASA hired astronauts from NYC, the famous line would have been “How sten, we have a problem.”.
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#70
The lack of stars due to light and air pollution. I never realized how different a sky can be when viewed from different places.
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#71
People loudly complaining while they’re walking. I listen to this guy pushing a stroller complain about the subway station being closed for the entire walk to the next station.
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#72
For me it was all the old gum that’s just perma-smashed into the sidewalks.
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#73
That significant portions of Central park are chained off. What’s the point of having such a big park if you have to stick to the walking paths?
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