New Yorkers respond to world events in as many ways as there are New Yorkers.
There is one pervasive response, however that I find most charming.
Doesn’t really matter what happens or where – snow in Atlanta, power outages in Pennsylvania, aviation accident in Southeast Asia, unrest in the midwest, attacks in the Middle East, the process goes something like this:
First we respond to the various texts, voicemails, emails, etc etc from people outside the city asking if everything’s ok (99.9% of the time, it is and we were nowhere near whatever happened, have no involvement in whatever happened, and sometimes don’t even know something happened).
Then we form some unshakable opinion about whatever it is that happened.
Then we get to the following: “Do we get the day off?”
I guess we think if there are targets – we must be one.
Or if people are upset about something somewhere else – empathetic people here will also be upset
Or if there’s a weather pattern somewhere else – it will either get here eventually, or stall our dealings with outsiders in that place
We definitely think we’re “next”.
We think other cities are jealous, and get defensive about why they might be targets for bad things too.
Even so, our behavior doesn’t change. We famously go about our business.
I believe we’re like this because we’re committed to the view that this City is really, really important.
Never mind why this is a topic today. You can figure that out. I’m not discussing it.
I hope we’re not as important as we think we are. Usually we’re not.
But more importantly — do we get the day off?