The pace is VERY fast. Part of the reason for this is because you are governed by the red light hand/little white light walk guy. You want to hit each corner as the walk signal comes on, and they come on quickly. They are timed to be on a fast pace.
You can cross the street anytime you want to, of course. People cross all the time, whether they have the light or not. HOWEVER, don't think a car won't hit you just because you are a pedestrian in an intersection. So it's best to try to wait to cross when the little white light walk guy says it's ok, and it's best to wait when you have a red hand telling you to stop. Of course, the minute people get the "OK to Walk" signal, they will walk in front of anything moving (assuming it's going reasonably slow enough to notice them.) Walking in NYC is a little bit like "Kill or be killed."
The extreme contrast is walking in Massachusetts. When we walked around in Boston, if we even got CLOSE to an intersection, cars would screech to a halt from every direction. Frankie and I still joke about it. Sometimes, in fact, in Boston, we felt compelled to cross a street we didn't want to cross, because everyone had come to a stop assuming we were crossing. It's the law there, and it sure must be enforced.
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