Tag Archives: confusing signs

NIMS and NOMS

We New Yorkers, have, upon occasion, been known to be a tad self-absorbed. Common wisdom holds that Londoners see their city as the center of the world and New Yorkers view theirs as the world itself. Nor are we New Yorkers known for patience. I read somewhere that telemarketers receive special training so they can convey their messages to New Yorkers at double the pace they employ for other locations. And, this just in: New Yorkers also like to complain.

Add self-absorption, impatience, and irritation and you get a phenomenon known as NIMBY – “not in my backyard.” NIMBY occurs all over the world, of course, but in New York City, where backyards aren’t common, it’s more often NIMS – “not in my street,” or NOMS, “not on my sidewalk.”

Check out this NOMS sign:

Note the italics.

I might not have snapped a photo of this sign had it not italicized THESE PREMISES. The italics add emphasis and imply that you are free to loiter somewhere else, just “not on my sidewalk,” or NOMS.

A variation, which I’m still trying to decode, appears on this sign:

Let Fido poop on the sidewalk. Just not my sidewalk.

Around tree?

In a flush of optimism (no pun intended), I first saw this sign as a request to steer dogs to the stretch of curb around tree. (An impatient New Yorker, the sign-writer had no time to add the.) But this sign appears in New York, so I must conclude that instead of offering canine accommodations, the sign-writer wants dogs to go on somebody else’s sidewalk or street. It’s a NIMS/NOMS.

Slightly off topic, but too good to omit, is this sign:

Blessed or punished?

The tenuous connection to NIMS is the fourth statement, Private Property. Implied by that phrase is “go somewhere public” (NIMS). But I have to admit I snapped the photo because of the five exclamation points, each a vehement finger stab in the eye. (How New York is that?) The sign also attracted me by including one our language’s strangest words, sanctioned, which means (a) official permission and (b) punishment. You have to love a language in which a word may be its own antonym.

And you have to love New York City, or at least I do, for displaying signs like these.

(Truly Real) Real Estate

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When the apartment building on my corner was nearing completion, I checked the ads selling its apartments. I wasn’t buying; I was simply nosy. The website touted the idea that the property was “steps from Central Park.” True, if you take a lot of steps. Like, a LOT of steps – a brisk ten minutes’ worth, not counting time spent waiting at red lights. With that definition, every location is steps from Central Park – Nebraska, for example. You just have to keep walking.

That advertisement underscores the need for vigilance in approaching the New York City housing market. Only with constant attention will you know the exact moment when hipsters move in where hip-replacements once dominated. The language of this market is odd. The New York Times once wrote about the true meaning of some common real estate terms. I don’t remember all of them (and I may have added a few myself), but here is a selection:

Cozy means the kitchen is the size of a bathmat.
Private or secluded refers to an apartment whose windows face a brick wall.
A townhouse feel guarantees that passersby can watch you sip your morning coffee through sidewalk-level windows.
If you have skyline views, you probably have to take a train to work.
A charming apartment has an intact, never renovated (or cleaned) 1950s bathroom, which matches the style and condition of other rooms.

And speaking of rooms, do apartments in other cities have half rooms, as in two-and-a-half-room apartment? I never have decoded that one. Does a half room lack a wall? A ceiling? Or just space? If the last definition applies, is there an official standard for half and whole? Most NYC rooms would be third or quarter rooms anywhere else.

And then there are other claims:

No machines?

It took three trips to this construction site to get a photo not blocked by cranes and other heavy machinery, which presumably were not working on these apartments because then the sign would (gasp) be a lie.

I have more to say about what real in NYC real estate, but I’ll save it for another post. My home isn’t handcrafted, but my cleaning is. See you after the vacuuming is done.

And if you have any real real estate stories, feel free to send them in.

And in confusion . . .

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I was ordering merchandise one day when the clerk asked for my phone number. Why he didn’t already know, given modern caller-ID, was a mystery. But I dutifully began, “212 . . .” only to interrupted by “no, that’s wrong.” I may be old, but I do know my own phone number, so I continued in a slightly louder voice, enunciating carefully. “My telephone number is 212 . . . ” Again with the interruption: “It can’t be 212. You’re too polite to live in New York City.”

Indeed. I know the city’s reputation, which is in part deserved, but not all of us are unruly. Sometimes we’re just confused. I mean, what would you do if you were faced with this display?

Stop? Don’t stop?

To make matters worse, this beauty stands in front of the United Nations. Can you imagine tooling along First Avenue while decoding these mixed messages in your second or third language? I’d love to know how many people have crumpled fenders because (a) they stopped on the red signal and the car behind did not or (b) they didn’t stop at anytime but the driver in front did.

Not that New Yorkers obey signs all the time:

File under “wishful thinking.”

In case you missed the point, the car is blocking the building entrance, which is graced with a sign saying, “Do not block building entrance.” Of course, the driver could always argue (and if a New Yorker, probably does argue) that the building management has no jurisdiction over traffic. Only the cops and the Department of Transportation can regulate pedestrians and vehicles.

Not that others don’t try. One sign, widely mocked and willfully ignored, asked that people waiting at a bus stop not take shelter under the building’s awning or touch the canopy’s vertical supports. Sure. We’ll do that. Just as soon as it snows in July.

The sign lasted about a month. If that bus stop were closer to my house, I’d have stood under the awning every day, leaning on the pole, upholding the rights of us peasants.