Tale of Two Cities

Last week I joined PaulA on a couple of his business trips. I had the opportunity to visit both Boston and NYC in the same week so it was hard not to compare the two cities.

For some reason when I am walking around New York City, I feel like I could be knocked of…mauled…or mangled… at any second. Everyone is a suspect and unlike other people on the streets…I am actually looking at people…staring them down…wondering who is the bad guy. I’m committing faces to memory for when I have to pick them out of a police line-up. I’m also afraid of something falling on my head …ending it right there outside Saks Fifth Avenue. I’m not the “sky is falling Chicken Little” type….this fear is not made up. To prove my point…later in the day I heard on the News that cement fell from a Brooklyn building; smashing the top of a car and just missing the two guys who were getting in it. There you have it…Case in point. Oh, and forget following the people on Canal Street who are hounding you with great deals on designer handbags. I am sure if I followed someone down the street, around the corner and behind the curtain… I might never be heard from again. I’m sure later I would be found…at the bottom of the Hudson River with a “best deal of my life” Channel handbag…not exactly matching my cement shoes.

Boston has a different feel for me than New York City. In Boston, I feel like I am in my own hometown ...just a lot bigger. People actually look at you. They even wait for you to cross the street without trying to run you down, and they even graciously hold the door open so it doesn’t smack you in the face. The only fear I have of falling…is me….falling out my shoes and doing a header…ending in a spread eagle on the sidewalk. Sadly, I have done this before, so this fear is not unfounded. The biggest fear I have when I am visiting Boston is the fear of the Boston accent. “Pahk the cah in Hahvad yahd…that’s a wicked pissah.”

Both cities have incredible restaurants. I love the Northend in Boston with the narrow cobblestone streets and incredible Italian restaurants at every turn… little boys playing stick ball. But NYC takes the sushi when it comes to great restaurants. I love the bustling, crowded streets and trendy shi shi restaurants at every turn …little hoodlums playing “knock off the next unsuspecting tourist .”

Don’t get me wrong… like the famous bumper sticker “I LOVE NEW YORK” …I, too, HEART New York. The two cities are different …but both are great in their own way. They both have so much to offer. I just need to get over my fatalist view of New York. Heck, I know there are bad guys in both cities.

I got to thinking about my worst case scenario: I think it would be if I was in NYC and I was approached by a bad guy who said: “Fohk ovah ya cash. Whatayou retahdid? This is a frickin stick-up. This ain’t no frickin Bawstin. This is New Yahk.”

I’m not sure which is worse…the action or the accent.