Colin Quinn: The New York Story Page #2

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What do you do? Give me a slice

of the pizza. Thats not New York pizza.

The guys like, I know. Its Italy.

I dont give a sh*t what it is.

Its not New York pizza.

Gimme that bagel. Thats not

a New York bagel. You dont know...

You have the wrong water.

We tell people they have the wrong water.

Its not like we live in Minnesota

with beautiful lakes.

Its our water.

We act like, Oh, this is the water.

But you still dont have

the psychological-- the attitude.

The superior attitude that we all--

That came from the British, you know.

Cause the British showed up,

and the British in those days,

they showed up, it was theirs.

Nobody even fought.

Theyre just, like, You know the drill.

Its the British Empire.

They brought the real navy.

They had the Royal Navy,

the biggest navy in the world.

Peter Stuyvesant is walkin around.

Looks in the harbor one day.

With his wooden leg, you know.

He just turns to his Dutch friends

and speaks in Dutch,

Were f***ed. You understand me?

I dont know.

And the British were like, You can keep

the names of the towns. Theyre quaint.

But lose the shoes.

Theyre the British Empire.

Get rid of the windmills, please.

What are you calling it, by the way?

New Amsterdam.

Cause the Dutch named it after their most

prized possession. Amsterdam is beautiful.

The British rename it

after the sixth shittiest city

in Northern England.

York was always a shithole.

Like, we should have been named

New London, right?

But there already was

a New London, Connecticut.

But if youve been to New London,

Connecticut, you realize

they should be called New York,

and we should be called New London.

So the British ran it, like I said,

all those Protestant churches

in Lower Manhattan were Brit--

And they just ruled, you know,

British style.

And they ran until-- Revolutionary War,

this was still British headquarters.

Manhattan was British headquarters

throughout the Revolutionary War.

So all the-- Nathan Hale hung to death

on 66th Street and 3rd Avenue,

where theres now a Starbucks,

of course, on the corner.

That doesnt say at all--

That ruins the glamour of their death,

you know, the martyr.

I regret I have but one life to lose

for your reduced-fat raspberry scone

and your caramel macchiato.

You know.

So the British ran it.

Finally, theyre out.

Then it became the transshipment point.

All kinds of stuff,

but smaller groups of people.

There was no main group until the Germans.

Germans came in in the early 1800s,

and they brought that German personality,

which is still a part of us.

First of all, they brought

the delicatessen, which is a German word.

And its the German personality

thats still here today,

where the customers not always right.

They yell at you. They hurry you.

They bully you. Efficiency over humanity.

Come on. What do you want?

While were young. Lets go.

What do you want? You dont know?

Get over there. Were still--

Were still the only city

that has two lines.

Ones for people that know what they want.

Ones for people who dont.

And if you get on--

If you get on the line that doesnt

know what they want, you never get back.

Its impossible.

Yeah, and that German personality

is still there. The abrupt, rude-polite.

Where people,

like, people from out of town--

They ask directions. Theyre smiling.

Youre giving them information.

Excuse me. Wheres the museum?

Excuse me. Wheres the subway?

People from New York accuse you

of information.

Like you owe them the information.

They dont say, Excuse me, just block

you. Whered you get the ice cream?

Youre like, Holy sh*t.

Then if you tell em, they want a review.

Over there. Is it good?

If you say its good, you have to leave,

or they might come back.

Wheres that guy

that said this was good?

Yeah, that abrupt, accusatory, Germanic,

you know.

But most of them left.

Theres still some Germans...

in Ridgewood,

compulsively washing

their stoops right now.

For the most part,

they moved to Pennsylvania, Ohio,

'cause they wanted order, symmetry.

The city had no symmetry.

All the streets are, like, on top--

It was just back-- It was--

Shantytowns on top of sh--

The water was so polluted,

people had to drink grog.

They couldnt even drink water.

Have to drink beer instead of water.

Whos gonna move there?

The Irish. Yeah. Irish people.

The Irish came

and they brought the wiseass.

When people say, Why do you talk out

of the side of your mouth?

That came from the Irish people.

Cause thats an Irish quality

from trying not to get slapped in church,

they talk out the side of their mouth.

Cause we came here,

and we were cynical to begin with.

And we're cynical we got here

cause theres no Statue of Liberty yet.

There was never that poetic moment

that the Italians and Jews had.

The Italians came. They see New York City.

Theyre already cryin, emotional.

And then they look up, and welcoming them

is a hundred-foot mother.

You know? Theyre like, Oh, Mama.

-So...

Theyre like--

The Jews were like,

Look at this. Its beautiful.

The qualitys not necessarily...

Its obviously copper. Its not bronze.

But, uh... Theyre welcoming you.

Thats the important thing.

The message theyre trying

to get across comes across.

Irish showed up.

It was the same docks they just left.

Look at this f***in--

Streets are paved with gold?

Theyre paved with shite.

Yeah. We just did what every group did.

We brought our history

and put that onto it to make sense to us.

So we brought it.

We made it into parishes.

Cause parishes make sense to us.

And a parish is just, you know,

a church, some Irish people and a bar.

Basically.

The bar and the church are very similar.

Theres a lot of stained glass in both.

A lot of kneeling going on.

There used to be a lot of smoke.

Youre waiting for the one person to tell

you, The mass has ended. Go in peace.

Or, Hey, you dont have to go home,

but you cant stay here.

And, yeah, thats what happened.

The Irish showed up, went to the church.

What should we do, Father?

You go to the bar.

Tell them I sent you, and theyll

set you up with you a job.

That was Tammany Hall,

basically, in a nutshell.

The church was the Internet,

bartender was the search engine

and whatever Web site he sent you to,

that was your job.

You didnt turn it down. They were

all Irish Catholic jobs of course.

Because theyre like,

We need a thousand carpenters.

If you turned it down: Are you too good

to do what Joseph and Jesus did?

No, okay. Ill take it.

The fire department started in 1845.

They said, We need guys

that are willing to run into flames

and drag souls out

of the torments of hell,

and then sit around, 12 of you,

and have supper together every night.

Theyre like, Ive seen that picture

my whole life. Id love to do it.

The police department

started the same time.

They said, We need you to find people,

drag em to a small, dark room,

smack em into confession...

until they absolve themselves

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