An Indianapolis listener is curious about a saying his dad used to describe anything that’s excellent or the best of its kind: Just like New York. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Just like New York”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how you doing? This is Pete from Indianapolis.
Hey, Pete.
Hi, Pete. What’s going on?
Not too much. Thanks for having me on the show, guys.
Yeah, sure. No problem. What’s on your mind?
Well, I have a phrase that my dad used to tell me, he still tells me, and it kind of goes back from when I was a kid growing up in Indianapolis. And he actually used to use it when he was a kid.
So every time that he used to repair something or do yard work or when he was baking some sort of bread or finishing a project, if it was a perfect job, he would always say, just like New York.
So I use the term now, and I’m working on a project or finishing a project, and when it looks really great, I said, looks just like New York.
So I’m kind of curious on where this phrase came from. To me, it seems like it would mean it looks perfect. So maybe you guys can help me out with this.
Wow.
That’s a new one on me. Give me a little bit more.
Your father was not from Indianapolis?
East Coast, actually. He grew up in the East Coast.
Okay. I asked him about this, and he said that he got the phrase from an old man who he used to work with at a golf course. He repaired all the lawnmowers and the maintenance yard, yard work around the golf course.
And every time this old fellow would finish a project, he would say, looks just like New York. So he got it from an old guy in the East Coast.
Interesting. And so was this when he was on the East Coast or already in Indianapolis?
This was when he was on the East Coast. He grew up, my parents grew up in Connecticut in the East Coast.
It was the 1950s then?
Yes.
Yeah, because I got nothing here. I don’t know this as a catchphrase or a famous line from a movie, nor as a famous line from a book, nor as an advertising slogan. I just got nothing.
I just wonder if it’s New York being the pinnacle of everything, you know, the greatest city in the world and all of that, and a place that people outside of New York might aspire to go to.
When you mentioned Indianapolis, I was thinking about in the past we’ve had calls from Indiana about that dish, Turkey Manhattan. I don’t know. Did you ever have that?
Yes, I’ve had that before.
You have. Okay, tell me what that has in it.
Yeah, what is Turkey Manhattan?
Turkey Manhattan to me is a couple slices of bread and turkey and gravy on top.
Yeah, yeah. So not that fancy, but given a fancy name. And I’m wondering if maybe there’s a connection there.
Oh, I see. Yeah. You know, this fancy place, this idealized place.
When we think about the origins of the expression, the Big Apple, that came out of the racetracks in New Orleans among African Americans and the idea was that everybody wanted to race in New York and it was seen as the big prize, the special thing, the polished fruit, so to speak.
But you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to fire up the sirens and the lights and throw this out to the listeners and just see if anybody else uses this expression this way or has heard it this way.
I don’t think they’re going to get much out of just Googling it. So if you know of or use yourself the expression, just like New York, to mean that something is cool, awesome, great, or good when you’re done with it, let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell us about it in an email to words@waywordradio.org.
So we’ll see what we get, Pete, all right?
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Yeah, sure. Take care. Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
All right. Thanks a lot.
Bye-bye.
Take care.
I could see it just being the epitome of everything. I mean, don’t you think about New York that way, ex-New Yorker, Grant?
It is a place that people aspire to go and live and be excellent, be the best version of themselves.
Yeah, I think that may be all it is.
It could be. But my question is, where and why? Is it just this one guy at a golf course in the 1950s? Or was it a catchphrase in the 1950s that everyone knew and has just fallen out of favor?
Let us know, 877-929-9673. Or send any kind of question or story at all about language to words@waywordradio.org.
My father uses a phrase very similar to this. Whenever a project or a measurement goes even better than expected he exclaims “Just like downtown”. It is a positive exclimation, and I have nearly exclusivly heard it used in construction jobs. He is an electrical engineer by trade, just turned 65, and hails from the hills of San Fransisco, working volunteer construction in his retired free time.
In a neighborhood where I lived on Chicago’s North Side, there was a janitor who used the phrase “Just like downtown” to mean the same as “Just like New York”, which I heard for the first time on this program. This was in the 1970s, and the janitor had been a radio announcer at some time in the past.
I also heard the expression “Just like downtown” from an African-American co-worker in NE Ohio in the 1970s. He said it whenever a difficult or complicated job was nicely finished.
I grew up in Wisconsin, where “just like downtown” means, “pretty slick,” or “great.” In CT, “downtown” means Manhattan or NYC. My father and grandfather used the expression — one a logger, boilermaker, welder, the other a telephone man. It is used to indicate that a task is completed quickly and on time without a hitch or setback. Usually it would be used with a task that you expected to be a problem, but everything went as expected and well.
There are lots of hits on Google for the idiom “just like downtown.” I am surprised Grant didn’t consider this idiom…
I have heard – and used – “just like downtown” quite a few times, though by “urban” people. Also for “just like New York.” In my non-blue collar circles we use it either for a job well-done or for an experience that went well, like traveling some distance to see a concert or a baseball game and the arrangements worked just as planned. (Arrangements meaning travel arrangements, not musical arrangements which are out of our control.)
Now that I’m in New Zealand, whenever I use these I think they just go so far over people’s heads they don’t even hear them. Using any Yiddish word, though, results in pure perplexity.
And, by the way, I’m always about 2 months behind on podcasts. And why does the spell-checker flag “podcasts”?