NEW YORK - New Yorkers are a polite bunch. No, really, they are. So says ReaderÂ’s Digest.
The magazine sent reporters “undercover” to 36 cities, in 35 countries, to measure courtesy. New York was the only American city on the list. In a city with a reputation for being in-your-face, New Yorkers seem to be expressing themselves with a new one-finger salute: a raised pinkie. In fact, they seem to have even better manners than people in London, Toronto and Moscow.
| Wonder how Berkeley would fare? |
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he’s not surprised. He told reporters Tuesday that whenever he travels abroad, he hears nothing but praise for the Big Apple’s good manners. “We are so jaded,” he said. “We want to think the worst of ourselves, and people from around this country and around the world think exactly the reverse.”
This tracks with my experience of living in NYC for 14 years. |