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It means anyone who doesn't live in Manhattan has to come through either a tunnel or a bridge to get there.. and they say that looking down on those people as if it's a terrible thing that you have to cross a bridge/tunnel to get onto "their" island.
It's mostly used to talk about people who are more suburban in nature and rarely go into Manhattan or other urban parts of NYC outside of the occasional night out in the city or weekend trip. So usually people from New Jersey, Long Island, Staten Island and some parts of the other outer boroughs get lumped into that. It can be pretty offensive depending on how it is used and yeah it does have some pretty bad connotations. It's usually associated with being tacky, low-class, and less cultured. But I would imagine this term is pretty old.
Ah ok so thats what it means. I laugh at the people offended by it. You give those people calling you it power when you're offended by it.
Some people never learned in elementery school...."sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" lol...so corny I know but the message is simple and goes a long way if you abide by it.
Its amazing when peoples self esteems are so low that you get bothered by this. The fact that half the people on this thread didn't even know what it meant already kills how effective the saying is already.
Funny.I first heard the term used in the late 70's and it was definitely meant in a derogatory way to describe people who lived anywhere other than Manhattan.It was " Oh,God I can't stand going out on Saturday Nights because the clubs are filled with all those dreadful bridge and tunnel people."
It survived the succeeding decades and got completely turned around in the early 2000's when the hipsters in Williamsburg started calling yuppies from Manhattan "the awful bridge and tunnel people" because they began invading the bars and clubs in Williamsburg on Friday and Saturday Night via yellow cabs. In those days you would never see a yellow cab in Williamsburg except on Friday and Saturday nights when the streets were suddenly swarming with them,dropping Manhattanites off at the restaurants,bars and clubs.
The abbreviation is BTP's.As in "here come those awful BTP's" or "she looks like a real BTP"
I have a story. I lived in Hoboken, NJ. I let a girl I knew from high school come stay with me for FREE, in her own bedroom. Then after 2 months of free rent, she found an apartment to the east village The day she signed her lease she said "have you hear of a bridge and tunnel person". I was actually more insulted she didn't think I knew what it meant. That was one of many things she did that sucked. Anyway, yes people say it! And to your face! She was dumb though....she also thought she was moving to ABC town. Yes she said a-b-c. Not alphabet. or city.
p.s. I went to her apartment and there was a human dump on the windowsill. Yea, I was the classless one! Hahah.That girl... One of my funniest stories...
Please....................... It is obnoxious & it is supposed to be derogatory.
It has numerous connotations. None of which are good.
agreed. the term exists to be insulting. I don't believe I've ever heard it in a flattering context. That being said it never bothered me. It helped me weed out the idiots and A-holes.
Well, I suppose the best course of action is to not let the term bother you as mentioned already several times. Still think anyone who uses that term in a derogatory fashion should be exiled from Manhattan... they're just dragging the island down.
It's a very old term, which is why some folks here didn't know what it meant. When Manhattan was the center of it all, anyone in the other boroughs or burbs were bridge and tunnels, or b and t's. Now of course it's way outta date, unless you're talking about homeless folks who live under a bridge or in a subway tunnel...but even that doesn't happen too much anymore.
PS: anyone remember the Tunnel club? It was in an old subway tunnel, right? Was that a real place?
I think the term was resurrected with the Sex and the City series. Miranda (the lawyer) has finally married her baby daddy and he wants to move to Brooklyn. Her girlfriends all lament. She gets in a cab to go check out a place and the cabbie says 'sorry, I don't go to Brooklyn) - this series was in the 90s, remember. Miranda looks pensively and replies 'Yeah, I don't either!'. . . BTW they do end up in Park Slope. Also one of the episodes is practically devoted to the 'Tunnel' when Sarah Jessica Parker's character - cringes at those memories.
My daughters girlfriend lives in a 5th floor walkup in a 2 bdrm with 4 other people in Spanish Harlem and she used that term when she had to come over to Brooklyn Heights. She talked about how nervous she was to be off the island.
I admit it did bother me - I was an adult and didn't say anything snide. Yeah, it bothered me but I recognize like other posters mentioned, that's totally my problem
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