MIDTOWN — New York may have been named the country's rudest city by a Travel + Leisure reader poll, but many Manhattanites — and even tourists — politely declined the title.
"I really don't think they are," said Simon Siegel, a 25-year-old from Brooklyn who recruits people to see comedy shows in Times Square.
"New Yorkers are at heart good people, but when they're on their way to work, you don't want to get in their way."
K.I. Double, a hip-hop artist from The Bronx, encounters a fair amount of rude people handing out CDs in the busier areas of the city, but even he said the city doesn't deserve the title.
"You run into people who are not too kind, not too generous," he said. "But you also run into people who are generous. It fluctuates."
Even people from out of town disagreed with the Travel + Leisure poll, citing nothing but good experiences with New Yorkers in their travels around the city.
"I think there's rude people everywhere," said Stacy Tanguay, 35, who often visits the city from Connecticut.
"I think it's just 'cause there's a lot of people," chimed in her 13-year-old daughter, Taylor.
New Yorkers were a relief for Daniel Stevens, 22, who said people act more rudely in his native London. Still, he managed to find one section of the city worth griping about.
"The taxi drivers are rude — but that's it," he said.
