Everything in New York moves faster than it does anywhere else, so New York has its own compressed measure of time. So a New York Minute is essentially no time at all; if something happens in a New York Minute it happens right away. You could probably fit about two and a half of New York's Hours into an Iowa Second. The Web site World Wide Words says that an unhappy Texan may have come up with the phrase to complain about our lack of patience.