Here Is New York

While most Columbia students have been studying for finals and finishing up their theses this week, I've been busy brushing up on my New York City trivia in preparation for another important test. For days, I have been poring over my textbook, looking through my notes, memorizing passages from obscure governmental Web sites, and having my friends give me pop quizzes on the material.

And so it was that yesterday, after days of preparation, I found myself on the fifth floor of 42 Broadway ready to try my hand at becoming a licensed New York City sightseeing guide.

While beautiful from the outside, the building's ultra-fluorescently-lit interior is as unpleasant as any I've ever been in. As Pat Kiernan blared from multiple television sets and a computerized voice shouted for the next people to go up to the bulletproof attendants' windows, I filled out the 10 pages of paperwork. (I found it slightly offensive that I had to fill out a form stating that I wasn't paying child support, especially since I then had to get out of line and pay to get it notarized.) Forty minutes and 75 bucks later, I made it into the testing room.

"Hi, my name is Josh, and I'm he-"

"I know why you're here," snapped Maria the proctor, a nice woman who had apparently dealt with too many annoying questions. After I filled out a third set of paper work, she warned me that the 150-question test (you need to answer 97 correctly to pass) could take up to four hours. "Most people don't pass it the first time they take it," she added helpfully.

Despite her warning, I was feeling slightly cocky as I sat down at the computer. After all, three years into completing my urban studies major, I've ridden through the city streets at midnight, done lots of research, and taken seminars with Ken Jackson and Hilary Ballon.

The first multiple-choice question popped up: "What credit cards does TKTS accept?" "That's an easy one," Maria said before heading back to her desk.

Crap.

The test is designed as much as an informational guide as it is an exam. A lot of the questions, though, were just strange. What was the address of Jacqueline Onassis's apartment? Where did Edgar Allen Poe maintain a house? Where is the best place to buy literature of Santeria in Harlem?

Beyond the random trivia, I knew going in that some of the 17 subject areas covered by the test were going to be a long shot. For each of the questions about traffic restrictions on buses, I chose the longest answer and was thankful for my knowledge of ethnic foods (kimchi, baba ghanoush, bialies, and dim sum were all correct answers.)

Morningside Heights factored in at least three of the questions-one was about St. John the Divine, another asked for a list of all of the institutions in the "Academic Acropolis," and a third was about Riverside Church... I hoped. Much more fashionable were questions about Chelsea, Greenwich Village, Harlem, and TriBeCa.

Just under two hours after I began, I completed a last run-through of my answers and hit send. Fifteen minutes later, Maria shook my hand and told me I'd passed by the skin of my teeth-101/150. By the time the speaker blared that someone was ready to take my picture, I was still smiling. I was a New York City tour guide.