Oct. 15, 2008 - fuggedabowdit (or not) / polite New Yorkers?

There are few generalizations about the 'character' of New York (and its denizens) that are more (... well ...) general than the image of the irascible New Yorker -- too busy running slow-moving out-of-town pedestrians over to offer directions, or even a smile. Or to hold a door. Or to help pick up your dropped papers. I will admit to feeling a bit of rueful recognition (through clenched teeth) when I see one of those fugly T-shirts hanging from a pole in touristy shops:

. (What's

favorite New Yorker rudeness story?)

The good folks at Reader's Digest are having none of it, as they set out to measure how polite 36 different cities are. New York is the only US city on their list, so Minneapolis may still have something to say, but the list of 36 global cities touched every inhabited continent. Their unscientific survey measured reactions to 3 situations: whether people entering a building held the door for the person trailing them; whether they helped someone pick up papers dropped on a busy sidewalk; and whether shopkeepers said thank you to people making small purchases.

New York not only out-paced cities such as Zurich, London, Paris, Auckland and Montreal, we kicked the proverbial rear-ends of Mumbai, Moscow and Helsinki.

is from the website of the Canadian Reader's Digest.

I think the Canadians were surprised by the results:

Fuggedabowdit!

(hat tip to

of The Atlantic Monthly)