Man asks volunteers to carry him up Manhattan for 9.4 miles

Mark Malkoff says: "I just released a new video entitled, "Man Carried 9.4 Miles by Strangers in NYC". In it I set out to disprove the myth that New York is unfriendly by attempting to transport myself from the southern most end of Manhattan as far north possible only by having people on the street physically carry me along the way. I ended up being carried 9.4 miles from the entrance of the Staten Island Ferry to 141st St & Broadway by 155 different people. The footage is quite incredible!"

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Reminds me of that cute little robot that artist left around NYC with a map. It was covered on BB, but I can’t find the post.
- Spikeles
  
  http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/13/tweenbots-social-rob.html
Anonymous

Retry this without the camera and see how much help you get. Even better, add the scent of urine to your clothes.
- Anonymous
  
  Why in God’s name would you want to stink of urine !?
Anonymous

Faster than the Subway.
sarahmayscott

I would love to see if this would happen with the person in a wheelchair, simply trying to navigate the city and shop. that would be more of a statement imho.
hobomike

New Yorkers are unfriendly. Tourists are not.
- Mark Carrier
  
  Hey, Cynical,
  
  Did you not hear a word that Conan said to us last week?
  
  Watch who you’re calling a tourist.
  
  …not that they’re not nice, too.
Osprey101

Then, once the cameras were off, they set him on fire.
dirk2217

i’d like to see how much better this would work if it was a woman(hot of course) asking to be carried…
SamSam

That was way cuter than I thought it would be.

I figured “sure people will carry him with cameras in their faces,” but actually people seemed really nice about it. And the guy was fun.
TheWillow

you have that backwards.

New Yorkers are friendly to anyone who isn’t actively preventing them from going about their business – we’ll will make ourselves late if you need directions or look lost while not being in the way, but if you are just gumming up the works we’ll probably shove you into traffic.
- TheWillow
  
  just mentally fix the spelling/grammar issues. It’s been a long day.
- El Mariachi
  
  Succinctly put. As a transplant, I’ve tried to explain why some laid-back Californiaisms make me smile and others drive me into a homicidal rage. You nailed it: Get Outta The Way!
Anonymous

Very cool, but tweeting is cheating.
- Anonymous
  
  not at all. using tools doesn’t change the spirit of the challenge. after all shoes are tools.
Freddie Freelance

New York can be one of the friendliest towns, under the right circumstances, and it can be one of the unfriendliest of places under the wrong circumstances. I’ve seen NYC chapter Hell’s Angels help old ladies carry groceries home, but I’ve also seen little old ladies push, shove & scream for blood when they weren’t getting their way.
ben_cosgrove

The notion that NYers are “unfriendly” befuddles me. Frankly, who cares if a stranger is “unfriendly”? As long as they doesn’t stab me, or spit on me, or otherwise make my commute or my daily stroll through the city dangerous or awkward or smelly in some way, I honestly don’t care if I encounter a thousand “unfriendly” people. I have my co-workers and my family and my own friends with whom I’m friendly (or unfriendly), and so worrying about whether a stranger is going to be friendly toward me is about 976th on the list of things that concern me when I wake up and when I go to bed. All that being said — Malkoff’s is a wonderful video, and about as reliable a gauge of what NYers are really like as, say, handing out yellow penalty cards on the subway for littering while being followed around by a film crew. (Hilarious comment up there about the UGGS, Yep.)
ben_cosgrove

Sorry, that was obviously supposed to read “as long as they DON’T stab me …” not “as long as they DOESN’T stab me …” Time to nap.
xzzy

I lived in NYC for a couple years, and I never got the impression that new yorkers were rude. Sure they’d yell at you if you did something wrong or you could frequently hear cursing along the sidewalk, but there was this undertone of respect between everyone.

Contrast to, say, Chicago (where I am now). You can hold a door open for someone and they’ll never even glance at you. Say ‘excuse me’ for any reason, and dirty looks are most common.. as if they’re afraid you’re trying to start an actual conversation.

I’ve lived in several major cities in the US, and none of them have citizens with their head further up their ass than Chicago.
justanotherusername

Retry this without the camera and see how much help you get.
Antinous / Moderator

About fifteen years ago in San Francisco, my roommate and I went to Halloween in the Castro with him dressed as a mermaid. We couldn’t get a cab home and he could only hop, so a bunch of guys carried him from 17th and Castro to Haight Street so that we could catch the bus. They seems quite happy to oblige.
Anonymous

people will do anything for people as long as there is a camera there.
Anonymous

i thought that he said he was trying to find New Yorkers. He had tourists helping him out. They could have all been tourists.
Itsumishi

I’ve only been to NYC once, but it had to be one of the friendliest cities I’ve found myself in.

Every night my girlfriend and I went out we ended up being out until 3 or 4 in the morning hanging out and partying with complete strangers. One night after leaving a bar with said strangers we were walking to a subway station when we passed an old run down building. This was had his face up against the bars of the fence and was just staring at it. We stopped chatted to him, he told us a story about the building then asked where we were heading. He then paid for a cab that dropped us off right in front of our hotel and he headed off.

We got invited to another strangers apartment one night for some drinks. People were always happy to give us directions or tell how to get somewhere on the Subway.

London on the other hand… now that’s a city full of grumpy unfriendly people.
koolboy5

New Yorkers are friendlier
Anonymous

This will never replace the subway.

Seriously, New Yorkers are friendlier than legend has it. But try this stunt every day, or have dozens try it every day, and see how friendly they are.
Yep

It’s the UGGs. They engender pity.