New York has always been proud to present itself as a rough town, a gritty and grimy place full of reckless cab drivers, Wall Street brokers who would sooner punch you in the face than give you directions, and unscrupulous hucksters looking to make a big score on gawking midwesterners who don’t realize they’re craning their necks up at the Chrysler Building and not the Empire State Building. It’s a city that will chew you up and spit you out before you can learn how to pronounce Houston Street, and that’s exactly how the people who live there like it. They wear their identity as New Yorkers like a badge of honor, proof that they made it there and can therefore make it anywhere.
Except New York isn’t really like that anymore. The porn theaters have been excised from Times Square, Hell’s Kitchen is no longer controlled by The Kingpin, and the scariest thing that might happen to you on an average day while walking by Madison Square Park is Billy Eichner jumping out and screaming at you about celebrities. Now, as the final nail in the coffin of New York’s intimidating reputation, a survey conducted by Travel And Leisure Magazine has determined that it’s no longer the rudest city in the United States. In fact, it didn’t even get second place.
Somehow, America’s rudest city is now Miami, with the magazine blaming it on the abundance of sexy rich people, fancy restaurants, and the fact that it’s unbearably hot there—“the kind of heat that makes you just want to blame someone.” Coming in second is Phoenix, Arizona, which has been steadily climbing the rudeness list over the last few years. Travel And Leisure’s theory is that the people who inexplicably choose to live in Phoenix don’t like how many people “winter in their hometown.”
It’s not all bad for New York, though. The rest of the country may be catching on that your gruff exterior is just a defense mechanism to keep us from really getting to know you, but at least you’re still number three. That’s pretty good as for as being impolite goes, and it’s still better than Los Angeles (fourth), Boston (seventh), and Chicago (which didn’t even rank). Plus, the Nintendo store in Rockefeller Center has a great selection of stuffed Pokémon toys. Beat that, Miami.