Empty subway car? Steer clear!

Question: I’m plan on moving to New York City soon. What are the five most important things I should know?

— These Vagabond Shoes

Dear Shoes:

Wow. What a question! Where to begin with a city that encompasses 304.5 square miles in the five boroughs, has 520 miles of waterfront, 655 miles of mainline track in the subway system, 729,624 buildings (of which 754 are classified as skyscrapers) — all occupied by 8,622,698 million New Yorkers and, on any given workday, an additional 1.6 million non-New York City commuters and visitors?

You already know that New York City is the most populous in the country, more than twice the size of No. 2, Los Angeles, but you may not be aware that the Census Bureau’s New York-Newark Combined Statistical Area includes 24 million people (1 out of every 15 Americans) in a vast geographic area reaching from the far tip of Long Island into Pennsylvania, and from the foothills of the Berkshires to the South Jersey shore. If the region were its own state, it would rank third in the nation, just below Texas and above Florida.

You certainly know that New York is the business capital of the world. Although it’s the big-league business town, where the companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange have a combined value of $18.5 trillion, or about 27 percent of the total value of all the companies listed on the world’s major exchanges, you probably don’t know that New York outranks San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Portland as an incubator of start-up companies.

And, of course, you know that New York is the cultural capital of the world — singularly combining in one city some of the world’s greatest art collections, along with print and electronic publishers, global news and information providers and popular entertainment. But you may not be aware of these out-of-the mainstream places that will certainly expand your cultural horizons.

So five things you need to know, that you don’t already know. Every New Yorker is going to have a different list. Here’s mine:

  1. At $121, a 30-day MetroCard is the best deal in town.
  2. It’s a lot cheaper in the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn than Manhattan.
  3. Never, ever get in an empty subway car in an otherwise full train.
  4. It’s a sideWALK, not a sideSTAND.
  5. It’s almost always faster to cross town uptown rather than downtown.

That’s mine. What’s yours? Put your five things you need to know about New York in the comments below. I want to see what you have to say.

David Crook is a veteran journalist and author of The Complete Wall Street Journal Real-Estate Investing and Homeowner’s Guidebooks. Do you have a question about anything real estate-related in NYC? Write him at askus@streeteasy.com. For verification purposes, please include your name and a phone number; neither will be published. Note: Nothing in this column should be considered professional legal advice. If you have a legal issue, consult an attorney.
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