17 Things You Only Understand If You Were Born And Raised In NYC

Katherine Ripley • April 5, 2016

There are New Yorkers, and then there are native New Yorkers—the ones who were born in this city and have never really known what it’s like to live anywhere else. Here are 17 things only natives understand:

1. How to refill your MetroCard in 20 seconds flat

2. How to get around Central Park without a map

3. How to spot a transplant just as easily as a tourist

people to avoid cover — [Timothy Krause/Flickr]

4. Where to find the dingy holes-in-the-wall that serve the most delicious food

5. How to give someone flawless directions on the spot

6. How to shut down con artists and scammers before they even get started

7. You never learned to drive a car because there was no reason

8. Now you’re afraid to move to a place where you might need a car

9. OR—you know how to drive and you can parallel park like this:

10. And you groan whenever you see your friends park like this:

11. You wouldn’t be caught dead at Rockefeller Center between November and January

12. You know the prime times to go to the Met and the Moma

13. You’re not afraid to shake down a washing machine when it eats your quarter

14. If someone tries to feed you a mediocre bagel you will literally spit it back at them

15. You’re not afraid to ask for your money back

16. You never complain about a long walk

17. You’ve got an attitude that absolutely nobody wants to fuck with

Cover photo credit: Several seconds/Flickr