h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

what about manhattan, queens, etc?


peace,
ajay

Perhaps—indeed, likely—they've not been written about. Mark seems to have compiled separate entries on different bits of the city, and if there was no entry submitted about Manhattan, Queens, etc, then there's nothing for him to put in.

I recommend writing one, but I'm no one to listen to.

yeah, this is a great entry, it needs completion. I'm sure we can all throw in our 2c about NYC. What a fabulous place.

This is a great beginning entry. You left out the other boroughs, like my hometown of the Bronx (and we do say that we are going into "The City" when we go to Manhattan). The Yankees? The Bronx Zoo? The South Bronx? The Son of Sam (although he's really from Yonkers and I once knew a guy who was babysat by him or some such tale)? You've missed so much great stuff and urban blight.

The diamond-shapes surrounding the numbers on the subway car signs merely indicate that if you take one of these trains by accident and don't know "how to get 'there' from 'here'", you will be lost. No one will help you, especially not the police or station personnel, and certainly not the man smelling of urine and fast-food grease who is laughing very hard at you. The train will not stop at your particular station during rush hour. You will never go home again, and you will become a vagrant (possibly smelling of urine and fast-food grease), joining the other people sleeping in stations for the rest of your natural life.

There is nothing of interest in Queens, except.. maybe....hmmm... okay.... The Mets, The World's Fair Grounds in Flushing Meadows... and The U.S. Open tennis tournament once a year. Oh yeah, John F. Kennedy International Airport is the worst airport I've ever been in.

Staten Island.... boring stuff.

KK

Great piece about New York. Could someone read my guide entry about 'Places and their Stereotypes', I want some USA knowledge on it.

New York is a STATE. If you mean to discuss the city of a similiar name please utilise it's full title of New York City. You must have no idea the frustration involved in explaing the geography of the matter. "I live in NY" 'I've always wanted to go there.....what's the city like?' "I live FOUR BLOODY HOURS AWAY". From what I gather the greater population on this little guide comes from the UK, well it's like saying I live in England and people assuming your from London; I've encountered people who don't realize that the United States of America is made up of things called states, and certainly have no bleeding inkling that New York might be one of them....I've said enough for now......bleah.....

Relax Seth
Most people from outside the USA has geography as a part of their educational program......


-B-

I'm surprised to hear that some people genuinely don't know that there are far too many states, all of whom have fairly large and well-advertised cities in them. I attributed this "common knowledge" to the amount of television programming and film that originates both in New York City in specific and America in general. This material is quite specific about what city lies where, and what sorts of landmarks there are. About the only confusing part is the general layout of the area: where are Queens, Brooklyn and the airport in relation to NYC? Ideally, I should look on a map only most of the time I'm not thinking about this.

Will there be any effort made to fuse this entry with the material on World Motoring habits? I remember a chunk from there on NYC (which this article has overlapped a bit) that's worth incorporating, or at least linking.

A good job and quite readable....actually, it improved my knowledge of the area.

Fruitbat

(for the person confused about NYC geography)
Brooklyn and Queens are east of Manhattan, sharing an island with two other counties, Nassau and Suffolk. The Bronx is north (and the only part of the city connected to the mainland) Staten Island is sort of south of Manhattan.
Both airports are in Queens, one sort of in the northwest corner (LaGuardia) and one sort of in the southwest corner (Kennedy)

(for the others, who feel their home boroughs were forgotton)
I wrote the part of the entry on Brooklyn, because I live there (and because most people consider New York to just be Manhattan, and it isn't). I guess no one else wrote in about the other boroughs. Theoretically I could write about the Bronx too, because I used to live there, but I don't feel like I know as much about that borough. I'm sure if other people wrote entries for the rest of the city they would put them up.

I really think Brooklyn deserves a long entry of its own. (Or maybe it has one already <g&gt It has its own illustrious history as a city in its own right before the 1900's. It's the original home of The Brooklyn Dodgers Baseball Team (a pale version exists in Los Angeles), the home of "Saturday Night Fever", and "Sensation", a controversial exhibit of British Art over at the Brooklyn Museum. It's got the beautiful Brooklyn Bridge, and Coney Island, and Little Odessa. It's got Bensonhurst fer cryin' out loud! I think that an entry covering Brooklyn should be attempted by a braver person than I am, who actually lives there. It's possibly more a microcosm of the working man's universe than Manhattan.

What do Brooklyn people think of Buffalo?(the city, not the animal). Is there an image or personality associated with Buffalo?

I don't know exactly how Brooklynites regard Buffalo as a city. Speaking as a Bronxite, I know it exists. I know it's cold. I know it's in the far westrn corner of New York State. I know that are no buffalo in Buffalo, as far as I know. One day, just for kicks, I'd like to go shuffling off to Buffalo.

On the animal: thems great eatin'! Jus' real expensive to get Buffalo steak 'round these here parts.

KK

What about Boston? (working my way through the 'B's). Does Boston have an image that Bronx or Brooklyn people automatically get when someone mentions it, or that anyone in the USA gets......Example of what I mean from the UK: if someone mentions Morecambe we all think of a run down old fashioned coastal resort where they dont get good weather but it used to quite nice in about 1950. We think that, even though 90percent have never been there. Its just got a national image.

You might stick to the steaks, but I like the wings......yes, a widely known fact, Buffalos (?, Buffali?) Have wings.....they'e not even that big, must be vestigial or something; but they're quite the tasty appetizer.

Egads, how could I forget the wings? Most of the time, the wings are the only parts that anyone can afford to eat. Quite often, they're free if you find the right Happy Hour. The sauce tends to eat through the inadaquate napkins they give you to protect your hands from the sauce... I'm getting hungry. Ack!

Well, Manhattan is what is generally described in writings about New York City.

Queens is a bit of a myth. It is physically the largest borough and the parts have little in common. In 1897, Queens County consisted of a city, six towns and a number of villages, each parochial.

In 1898, New York City took over part of Queens and in 1899 the rest seceeded and formed Nassau.

Few people identify themselves as living in Queens. As far as the post office is concerned, you live in Long Island City, Flushing, Jamaica, Far Rockaway or maybe even Floral Park or Brooklyn. And now, by popular demand, the post office has even officially recognized that people generally prefer to use neighborhood names on their mail.

Parts of Queens are highly industrial, parts are suburban, parts are highly ethnic. The BBC World Service magazine program Outlook recently took a tour of the highly diverse Elmhurst-Corona area. As a matter of fact, the previous week, I had gone through downtown Elmhurst and gotten some Chinese groceries on one side of Broadway and gotten some Yerba Matte from an Argentinian bakery on the other.

Much of eastern Queens is, unlike much of the rest of the city, highly automobile oriented, the result of postwar development and expressways which made it with the help of Robert Moses and subways which never did.

Robert Moses, for those who don't know him, is probably one of the most important figures in New York history, right up there with DeWitt Clinton and Fiorello LaGuadia. He was elected to no office and was the head of every authority and commission from the late 1920's or so to the mid-1960's. He built everything which needed to be built and many things which shouldn't have been built. His expressway destroyed much of the Bronx. If he had had his way, the Vieux Carre (French Quarter) in New Orleans would have been destroyed by an expressway.

One amazing thing, for those who know the history of this town, about him was that billions and billions went through his hands and he didn't become rich as Midas. He jollied money corruption among the politicians with which he dealt and he was power corrupt but mostly he built.

The truth about Beautiful Brooklyn ... our parents left ..our children return..how's that for perfection!

I hope they don't merge the article so much as do a server-side include of the relevant bits and also provide an inline link to it.

the reason people refer to the city as "New York" is because up until the early 80's, it accounted for more than half the population of the state. Now, the state is 17 million people, while NY is 7 million (9 million including suburbs). Plus, NY is what is now refered to as the enter of the universe (at least, according to New Yorkers).

If you're still interested in what Brooklynites think of Buffalo, I can tell you that it's a wonderful place to spend a summer day. There is a great art museum, the Albright-Knox Gallery, that was funded by the Knox family (gelatin tycoons). There are five Frank Lloyd Wright houses that you can drive around & look at (and even visit). There are lots of summer street festivals. There is Niagara Falls not far away. People are friendly, the airport is cozy, and it's easy to drive around in.