From: Steven M. Bellovin (no email)
Date: Fri Apr 04 2008 - 18:02:50 EDT
On Fri, 4 Apr 2008 17:21:41 -0400
"David Diaz" <> wrote:
> TIPS:
> New York is a wonderful city, however, as with any large city travel
> safely
> -Do not use your iPod white ear pieces. Especially on the
> subway at night
> -Travel in groups or with a local
> -Know where you are going ahead of time so you do not need to keep
> the map open
> -Using your laptop on the train at night and storing it in a big
> laptop bag that says LAPTOP or FORUM on it is a no-no
> -DO NOT go to the wonderful local Apple Store and walk around the
> city with that white APPLE bag full of iPhones
> -Stay on the main streets not the allays especially off-Broadway
> -Car services from the hotel are flat rates and very cost effective.
>
> It's a very safe city for the last decade but travel smartly and
> enjoy.
>
I think you're contradicting yourself here...
Anyway -- I regard most of those warnings as quite overblown. I mean,
on lots of subway cars you stand out more if you don't have white
earbuds in, probably attached to iPhones. Midtown is very safe. Your
laptop bag doesn't have to say "laptop" on it to be recognized as such,
but there are so many other people with laptop bags that you won't stand
out if you have one. Subway crime? The average daily ridership is
about 5,000,000; there are on average 9 felonies a day on the whole
system. To quote a city police official I met, that makes the subways
by far the safest city in the world.
Yes, you're probably at more risk if you look like a tourist. But there
are lots of ways to do that, like waiting for a "walk" sign before
crossing the street... (Visiting Tokyo last month was quite a shock to
my system; I had to unlearn all sorts of things.)
Enjoy the city and don't worry about crime. The real danger is not
remembering that you never have the right of way anywhere, unless you
take it... (I currently live in a neighborhood that ~20 years ago, I
probably wouldn't have dared to visit. But the city is safer now than
it's been in at least 40 years.)
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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