I’ve lived in NYC for about a decade now. There are a lot of types of things and people you’ll find in NYC. Really, you’ll find any type of person in NYC. You imagine it, they’re here. There are plenty of types of people in NYC that I, having grown up in a small rust belt town, expected to find in NYC: the finance bro, the Williamsburg hipster, the old lady with the fur hat from the upper east side with the little dog, the bodega cat, the person on the subway who dances on the subway and makes you nervous that you’re about to be kicked in the face or forced to participate in the routine by holding his hat or something and who then expects money for having provided that experience.

Anyway, I’m going to focus on a few types of people that I encounter most days. These are types of people you don’t consider meeting when you move to NYC from a small town, because small towns don’t have sidewalks. They do, a little, but nobody uses them. But once you’re in NYC, walking everywhere you go, you start to notice some patterns.

Here we go, a handful of the most prominent sidewalk based characters you’re liable to find in the big apple:

-Guy who stands in front of you at the crosswalk just to walk slower than you

Now, everyone in NYC is in a hurry. Everyone is looking to get where they’re trying to go. If you see a gap, you take it. Everyone is in that mindset all the time. So, sometimes you’ll find yourself waiting at the crosswalk, and someone comes from behind you and stands in front of you. They’re now standing on the street. If you’re standing on the street, they’re standing even further into the street. They don’t give a damn if cars have to swerve to avoid them, they will be standing in front of everyone.

Why? Good question, because when the walk signal comes on, they either don’t notice it or start walking slower than everyone behind them. Yes, this character has muscled their way to the front of the line in order to walk slower than everyone else. You might even run into them more than once if you are both on the same path. After having walked around this person, and standing at the next crossing, here they come to the front again, waiting for you to pass them.

I don’t think this is done with any malicious or disrespectful intent. Yeah, it’s kind of selfish, maybe the act of a very light jerk. However, it’s just conditioning. It’s interesting to watch. Living in NYC makes you so conditioned to try to get into the subway, into the turning lane, into the door, into the line, and on and on, that you’re looking for your window even when you’re not in a hurry. If there is a front, you try to get to the front, or else you have to wait behind the crowd. And sometimes that conditioning is so strong that being the slowest person in the crowd, watching the same group of people walk around you for blocks, doesn’t even shake that instinct.

-Guy who walks diagonally on the crosswalk

Here’s another guy who follows the theme of seizing your window and pushing to the front of the line. This is a guy who crosses the street diagonally. Think about it. You’re going to cross the street and then turn to your right at a 90 degree angle, and start walking that way? Traffic laws be damned, there is a more efficient way. That’s right, the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line assuming a car doesn’t hit you on the way.

This character, when approaching the other side of the street, will often try to adjust their angle to enter the opposite sidewalk in front of some else on the sidewalk who happens to be using it correctly. And what will they do when they emerge from the street in front of this person? Say it with me: Walk slower than them.

So, occasionally, when using the sidewalk the right way in New York you’ll find someone emerge from the street and cut you off, maybe requiring you to even change your pace or angle to avoid tripping them, only to walk slowly enough that you have to walk around them. Again, Pavlov’s sidewalk.

-Guy who is looking at his phone until you are parallel with him

This one is related to the conditioning of getting to the front of the line, in the sense that it’s about positioning yourself amongst the hustle and bustle. This is not about the front though, but the back. As strong as the instinct to work your way to the front is in NYC, there is just as strong an urge to instinctively avoid the back.

This is someone you see standing still in the middle of the sidewalk. Usually, they are looking at their phone. Why do they need to stop in order to use their phone? It is called a mobile phone after all. Why don’t they move to the curb or closer to the building? No one knows these things. What is known, is that as soon as you are parallel with them, they will notice your presence or hear your footsteps and will suddenly remember that sidewalks are for walking and begin doing that again. And they will be doing it shoulder to shoulder or closely behind you.

So, although moments before they were not in a hurry and standing completely still, the fact that you are now going to pass by them activates a strange compulsion to not allow that to happen. This happens more often than you’d think. If you turn to ask them, as they walk shoulder to shoulder with you as they struggle to also send a text message, what they are doing, they might even die, similar to waking up someone who is sleep walking. So I’ve been told.

-Excuse Me Sir Guy

This guy will introduce himself with in the following way: Excuse me sir. Often, they will disregard the Ex part of that phrase. What they want is for you to stop walking. Don’t stop walking. Even if this guy follows you for a whole block repeating his favorite phrase, which happens, don’t stop.

If someone has a question or needs something, they will ask you. New Yorkers are not shy. The excuse me sir guy wants something too, and whatever it is, you don’t want to give it to him. If it was quick and easy and simple, they’d just say it. The fact that they want you to stop walking means they want to lean on you, they have a story to tell, a case to make, the ask is heavy and they know you don’t want to give it. And whatever it is, in addition to it, what they want is your time, the most valuable thing of all in NYC.

Headphones are an excellent shield against this type of person. They will often not bother, but even if they do, you have plausible deniability for not hearing them. Now, keep in mind, I’m not saying to be rude or to not help people. All I’m saying is if what they wanted was simple and easy they would just say it, so if you hear “Excuse me, sir” it will be neither of those things. Probably money or a cigarette.

-Leftsiders and Sidewalk Kings

These two are together because they behave the same, but they have different motivations. Leftsiders are people who walk on the left side of the sidewalk. Not unlike the road, the sidewalk operates in a more orderly fashion when we lean to the right and only go left for passing. Of course, the stakes are lower and it’s more easy to avoid one another so there is much more flexibility on the sidewalk. You may find someone passing or a weaver on your side of the sidewalk, you may be one of those people as well. Leftsiders stay in the left side.

It’s not temporary or while they’re alone on the sidewalk, they live there. They live there because they don’t know it is someone else’s space. Maybe they’re tourists, maybe they’re just not that bright, but there they are on the left side of the sidewalk. So you can either run into them, or you walk to the left side and get in the way of someone doing it the right way.

Sidewalk kings do the same, but they do it on purpose. They are the king of the sidewalk. Because they are the king of nothing else, they must become king of piss covered payment, reign supreme over the ancient gum and the rat doodoo beneath all our feet. This guy is a dork. Walk around him. Or, maybe 5% of the time, if you’re in a bad mood, you can just put your head down and look at your phone until you either run into him or he realizes you’re both going to collide and he loses the game of chicken. He doesn’t walk around you though. He just walks right up to you and doesn’t run into you and acts like he’s surprised to see you, on the side of the sidewalk that everyone is always walking down. And you can have some satisfaction from forcing him into a silly interaction that wastes their time. You could also just shoulder check him and deliver a little sidewalk justice. You just hold whatever you have in your hand tight and lean forward. You can disguise a nice powerbase with good leverage as slouching and basically smash anyone who isn’t ready for it. Obviously, that might seem immature, but isn’t Batman kind of immature too? And yet, Gotham is better off for it.

-Honorable Mentions

This is not an exhaustive list by any means. There are sidewinders, who are people who walk along the sidewalk in an ever evolving curve and never in a straight line, such that it is difficult to pass them from behind or if coming toward them they will veer into your path. They follow a similar pattern as weavers, who weave through a crowd they are moving faster than, but without intent, simply because they are too dumb or drunk to walk in a straight line. There is Gaza Bob, who is a character that is screaming, usually about a conspiracy or a political matter, often involving jews, and typically in a place where there are many midwestern tourists. This character likes to scare tourists and craves that kind of attention. While it often works on tourists it has limited effect on NYers, native New Yorkers are like “Oh, him? Yeah, that’s Gaza Bob, he’s down on Time Square every Tuesday and Thursday to get his fix of making nervous midwestern tourists rush by him.” There’s also Gaza Bob’s cousin, IDGAF Gary, who doesn’t GAF, he doesn’t GAF if he goes to jail, he doesn’t GAF if he has to kill a MFer, and he likes to go to public places, usually with tourists, to scream that to no one in particular for no reason in particular. Like Gaza Bob, he will never hurt anyone but thrives on attention and giving tourists a false sense of having seen something dangerous or scary. Not to mention, Speakerphone Fury, my personal favorite, who is someone who has a very loud fight with their significant other in public, screaming into a phone with the speaker mode on, holding the phone about 6 inches from their face, pacing back and forth, waving their arms around like a maniac and ranting and raving, looking like a crazy person who is sick of these damn buildings and these sidewalks and is just telling them off.

-Conclusion

So that’s it for now. If you visit NYC, keep an eye out for these characters and let me know if you see one. If you’re in NYC or have lived there, let me know if any of these resonate with you, or if there are any you would add. If you’ve never been, I’m curious if there are some variations you find where you’re from.

Finally, keep in mind, these are all just fun. Any American in a city nowadays knows its exhausting to have to your friends or family who have never entered a city for more than a day that cities are not dangerous, unless you’re scared of jobs that pay living wages, which can only be found in cities now. I can’t tell you how many times people have been like “I heard the subways are getting bad” and I’ve been like “From who? And also, children and old ladies ride the subway. And also, look around you, every business within 25 miles is a Wal Mart or Dollar General, the county has been shrinking in population since the 80s.” But that’s a different topic. Point is, this is all for fun, go outside, go to NYC, get out there and experience life, the good, the bad, and the funny.

by Zack Goncz

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