New York (as far as cities go)

It's funny when people ask how your travels were.  How do you compare one city to another?  What I might like in a city might be vastly different than what someone else might enjoy.  The reason that Michael and I travel so well together is because we like the same things: walking and exploring the city; cheap eats; fairly cheap sleeps; freebies; culture; art; public spaces; architecture; live music; indie culture.
We got all of this in spades in New York.
I'd like to take a few giant steps back in my travelling history and admit that my perception of Americans has definitely been proven wrong.  It started when I was in San Francisco and we read about the locals actively working to prevent a Walmart from going in in their area.  The guy in the SUV that pulled over when he saw I was not dealing well with the heat to advise where the nearest bus stop was.  The people that helped us every time we unfurled a map on the street.
Fast forward to our visit to Portland which was everything I dreamed a city could ever be: free transit in the downtown core, a bookstore (Powell's) which occupies a full city block, happy hour, people jogging on their lunch hour, scads of bikes everywhere.
When we were in Boston this time around, we made it to the downtown area (thanks to their great subway system) and were looking relatively perplexed and so a cabby of African descent pulled over, asked us where we needed to go and pointed us in the right direction.
Dude.  The guy wasn't even from here and he wanted to help us.
Our Boston stay was, like 2009, brilliant.  Imagine an entire city embracing and celebrating a bunch of moronic individuals that like to run 26.2 miles for fun.  I love Boston.  Love, love, love it.  It's a beautiful place.
New York?  You hear things about New York.  A friend's dad was mugged there.  The subways are dodgy.  If you take a wrong turn down an alley you're in trouble.
In New York the people were friendly.  The service was great.  Twice people helped me in the subway when I was doing something idiotic.  Why?
Aside from a very non-offensive panhandler on the subway, we weren't hassled at all.  When people jostled me they apologized.  The few rude interactions that I had were at the hands of other tourists, and not New Yorkers.
New York is an amazing, vibrant, brilliant, bustling city of excellent food, shows, landmarks, cultures and experiences.  It was much more negotiable that I had thought and way more safe.  I would absolutely walk around lower Manhattan on my own without a second thought.
I'm back home today and in my brief foray out to collect some food and wine I encountered more aggressive and rude traffic and people than I did in New York.
Vancouver is certainly a world class city, but the more I travel (Toronto, San Francisco, Boston, Portland, Chicago, Montreal, Ottawa, New York) the more I can't believe how uptight and unfriendly Vancouverites are.  I don't know what it is that makes everyone act like someone pissed in their granola, but it's embarrassing.
 I have resolved to try and be as pleasant to the people that I encounter in my ramblings around my neighbourhood as people were towards me when I was in ALL of the above cities.