15 Ways New York City Changes In The Summer
By Rachel Hodin
Outdoor Seating
Eating outside in the city is to New Yorkers as Times Square is to Chinese tourists. You’d think they never stepped outside in their lives. It’s practically admirable, a New Yorker’s willingness to let unmanageable pools of sweat build up behind their knees just to eat a burger with a perfect view of a squatting Pomeranian.
The Rich Flee
A mass exodus occurs every weekend for upper middle class Manhattanites. In exchange, droves of bridge and tunnel types flood in, in what appears to be a weekend-long competition for who can hold their liquor the least gracefully.
Everything smells worse
Every day is like a 24-hour long college shower during which someone else sneaks in to take a poo. Similar to the unrelenting heat and humidity of your average summer day, the steamy, hot air of those showers always seemed to intensify the smell of shit in a suffocating sort of way.
Ratatouille
It’s only during the summertime that the number of supposed rats in New York City (8.3 million) seems like it might actually be true. I don’t know about you, but I’m often engulfed by a crippling paranoia when walking down side streets at night, not unlike a Haley Joel Osment à la The Sixth Sense — except, instead of seeing dead people, I see rats.
Who Run The World? FroYo and Smoothies.
Pinkberry and Juice Generation are reminded of why they opened up in the first place, and monopolize the economy.
Inhibitions Cease To Exist
People do things in Washington Square Park that not even Stevie Wonder would go unblind to see. A common tendency is to treat the park benches on a drunken night as one might treat, say, their bed.
Australians In Brooklyn Continue To Make An Interesting Case Study
Australians in Brooklyn continue to defy all odds of human capability and sport slouchy beanies in 90-degree weather.
Parents Lack Discretion, Give Children Life-Threatening Diseases
Hey Parents, I’ve got a riddle for you. What happens when you sit idly by in a playground as your child douses himself in the communal fountain? AIDs is what happens. AIDs.
Showers
They become as useful as infertility in China, and so are inevitably swapped out for the easier alternative: running through a thunderstorm. (Or is that just me?)
Pimples Proliferate
Stand on a subway platform and you will witness the birth and maturation of impossibly large and oddly placed pimples.
Priorities Change
The best part of your day becomes the seven-second breeze of a passing subway — even if the breeze smells and tastes like human feces (and it usually does). And the second best part of your day, when a fatty, naked bicep knocks you sideways on the train, causing your forehead to collide with the cool metal poles. (Again — just me?)
A Cesspool Opens To The Public
McCarren pool finally opens! Where, if you don’t catch syphilis, then you’ll surely get stabbed! A fun time for all!
People Confuse Parks For The Beach
A whole year in a cold city can be hard, but it’s not an excuse to treat Central Park as one might treat a beach. The crucial difference between the two is that the beach has the ocean to cool off in, while NYC parks offer no such respite. Don’t believe me? Fine! Have fun throwing your clothes on over your sweaty body and then running into a cloud of bus exhaust!
The Soho House Roof: A Paradox
The roof of The Soho House becomes at once the last place you want to be and the last place you can get into.
McCarren Park: A Hipster Circus
A lack of athleticism makes way for the more common and practical activities such as tightrope walking, hula hooping, and unicycling.