New York City Sucks - Stay Away!

David J. Danto

Travel thoughts in my own, personal opinion

eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD on

New York City Sucks – Don’t Come Here! – December 2024

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’m just trying to scare you away because honestly, the Big Apple is now a giant, overpriced, overcrowded pain in the rear. Let me walk you through my latest Broadway adventure – spoiler alert: it’s not the glamorous escapade you’re imagining.

The Commute: A Nightmare on Every Street

I live in central New Jersey, just a stone’s throw from Manhattan – or so it used to be. A quick 45-minute drive? Hah! It took my wife and I two and a half hours yesterday. Why? Because Manhattan has become a sardine can of cars. Oh, and good news! Starting next year, the governor’s congestion pricing fee will charge every car entering Manhattan an additional $9. Will it help? Unlikely. If you can afford the shows and restaurants in Manhattan, another nine bucks is just chump change. The real problem isn’t the cars – it’s the sheer number of people.

Times Square: Over-Tourism on Steroids

Times Square has become a human traffic jam. Cars can’t move because the streets are filled with people. Now I’m not saying the cars should have priority, but the simple fact is there are too many people. Take the cars out of the equation and the problem still exists. People can’t move because the sidewalks are bursting over capacity with too many tourists.

Every block now boasts about five boutique hotels charging over $300 a night for what can only be described as glorified closets with sinks. I ate pre-theater dinner at a restaurant yesterday that turned out to be in the lobby of a hotel I’d never heard of, and when I looked for the WiFi, it was Hilton’s. Since when did Hilton create a “Motto” brand? (There are apparently a whopping eight of them in the world since 2018.) When you take an already busy neighborhood and drop in a half-dozen hotels on every side street you get what we have – a city choked with too many people. Eureka, our garbage can is full.

A City-Boy’s Lament

Here’s the kicker: I’m a born-and-bred New Yorker. I lived in Brooklyn to be specific. I moved to Jersey thirty years ago for the sake of my kids. I wanted to give them a version of the Brooklyn I grew up in – a version that no longer exists in New York. The whole city is now an overpriced, overstuffed hassle. The charm has been swallowed by sky-high rents, insane property values, unbearable crowds, and streets clogged with everything including electric scooters, kamikaze food delivery bicycles, and especially clueless tourists. The infrastructure was built at a time when maybe one out of every 10 families owned a car. Now every family owns three cars. It’s the proverbial twenty pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack. It explodes open every day.

A Simpler, Saner Life Exists

Travel across the country and you’ll find places where life is easier. Picture this: you hop in your car, drive 10 minutes (without stop-and-go traffic), park right outside your destination, and walk in – no drama, no chaos. Heaven, right? Compare that to the misery of New York, where every step feels like a battle and it takes an hour to go fifteen blocks.

Maybe I’ve hit the “too old for this crap” phase of life, but New York feels worse than ever. And this isn’t even the holiday season yet – it’s just a regular day when the rest of the country is supposedly traveling home from Thanksgiving dinner. Ha! The only people traveling seem to be coming here.

Advice: AVOID THE DANGER!!!

So, here’s my advice: believe whatever ridiculous horror fantasies you need to to stay away. Yes, sure, there are criminals installing co-ed bathrooms for evil immigrants and gender fluid kindergarteners that are eating dogs and cats. Of course there are. You wouldn’t want to see something as terrifying as that. It’s best that you stay away…

Whatever you buy into, just don’t buy a ticket to New York. Scaring off tourists might be the only way to save this once-beautiful part of the world. And if you do come? Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The Delia Ephron play with Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher was wonderful, but it wasn’t worth the hassle it took to see it.

This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal opinions.

All image and links provided above as reference under prevailing fair use statutes.

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