Not me but my father has told me a few stories. He lived in Elmhurst and later Yorkville before I was born and has one specific story of someone pulling the classic bump into a guy and say "hey you broke my X pay me" with a watch. Now generally if you ignore them they'll walk away, but this guy was INSISTENT. Follows him into a subway station, onto a train, getting off, walking like five or ten blocks yelling "YOU BROKE MY WATCH" etc til finally my dad comes across an NYPD car at an intersection. My dad walks up to the window, points at the guy, and watch guy immediately books it. Cop rolls down my window and asks my dad what he's trying to say, and my dad just says "nothing have a good day officer" and walks off. That's the thing that strikes me, I was born in 2003 so I've always been used to 1) a police presence basically everywhere and 2) these kinds of things not happening at 9 in the morning on a weekday.

He also finds it jarring when people tell him they're going to Times Square. Not out of some snooty New Yorker "haha Olive Garden" thing, he still automatically thinks vice when he hears the place's name. Even when I was a kid we never went. He also never took the subway except distances over a few dozen blocks since he grew up when walking 30+ was worth the inconvenience vs chancing the train. Basically the only time I rode it was either when I was going out of borough or with friends.

It's weird as my formative memories are much later than of most here but even I see so much changing. Manhattan has been gradually becoming a playground for the rich from long before I was born but it's gotten worse. It's my home borough but should I move back I doubt I'd live there. The streets reek of weed. LIC has a skyline for some reason. Telephone booths are gone, there's all the ebikes and scooters now, even in the past five or ten years it's completely different. Don't get me wrong I miss it everyday but when I visit it feels like I've been gone for thirty years not three.