Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Social Climbing

Central Park

"To be called away from New York was like forcing a broker to leave his phone and computer. Just as buying and selling were hypnotic activities, writing, cruising and social climbing were every bit as randomly reinforced and gripping."
Edmund White, The Farewell Symphony

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

All Things

Columbus Circle

"New York is all things to all men— for all men from all places make her."
J. George Frederick, Adventuring in New York

Monday, April 28, 2014

Need to Look Fabulous

Fashion Institute of Technology

"Manhattan is a pretty small town when it comes down to it. I run into exes all the time. So you need to look fabulous all the time. You really need to kick it up a notch."
Julie Kraut and Shallon Lester, Hot Mess: Summer in the City

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Character Flaw

Last Week Tonight studio

"There's something about living here that is inherently ridiculous because it costs too much, it's not clean, it's not pleasant and you just get addicted to it. Eight million people have made a bad choice. And I'm one of those 8 million. I don't think New Yorkers are angry with each other as they are so much angry with themselves. It's a huge character flaw."
John Oliver, The Hollywood Reporter


Saturday, April 26, 2014

Killer

Medical Examiner van

"I don't like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I'm from New York. I will kill to get what I need."
Lady Gaga, quoted in New York Magazine

Friday, April 25, 2014

Ceiling Height

Morgan Library & Museum

"New Yorkers will tell you the height of their ceilings. They'll tell you unbidden, with a straight face.  They'll tell you about other ceilings they've seen or heard about.  They're serious about ceiling height. It matters. But only to New Yorkers and popes."
A.A. Gill, To America with Love

Thursday, April 24, 2014

No Rest for the New Yorker

Fifth Avenue

"The worst thing about New York is that it's like riding a tiger. One can never dismount, never rest, never let down. This is the drawn bowstring of the universe that never goes slack. It is exhausting."
Liz Smith, New York Magazine

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

So Cosmopolitan

Times Square

"New York is so cosmopolitan. You can keep busy and never meet an American."
Joseph Roccasalvo, Two for One

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Wacky Dreams

Midtown

"More than any other city. New York exists at once as a city of symbols and associations, literary and artistic, and as a city of real things. This is an emotional truth, of course—New York is a city of wacky dreams and of disillusioning realities."
Adam Gopnik, Through the Children's Gate

Monday, April 21, 2014

Capsized

Pier 25

"I think of New York as the capsized city. Half-capsized, anyway, with the inhabitants hanging on, most of them still able to laugh as they cling to the island that is their life's predicament."
Maeve Brennan, The Long-Winded Lady

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Nuclear Family

Greenwich Village

"Where we live, in New York City, just having a wife and children is considered a bit quaint. I sometimes think that some day we might be put on the Grayline Tour of Greenwich Village as a nuclear family."
Calvin Trillin, Third Helpings

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Anything Goes

Bryant Park

"One nice thing about New York City, a person never has to worry about fitting in. It's like the melting pot of the world, and anything goes."
Anita A. Lesko, Asperger's Syndrome

Friday, April 18, 2014

Vegas

East 42nd

"New York's a bit like Vegas. It never really sleeps. It just nods out every once in a while."
Kinky Friedman, Ten Little New Yorkers

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Wall Street

Wall Street

"The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There as nowhere else you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six."
Federico García Lorca, Deep Song and Other Prose

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Friendliest City

Bryant Park

"We don't come to a city to be alone, and the test of a city is the ease with which you can see and talk to other people. A city is a place where you are least likely to get a bite from a wild sheep and I'd say that New York is the friendliest city I know."
Brendan Behan, New York: An Illustrated Anthology

Monday, April 14, 2014

Assertive People


"Assertive people are not tolerated in California. My friends there would tell me one of two things. They either said: 'Go into therapy' or 'Go to New York.' And so I actually did kind of both of those things. I've been living in New York for a while now, and I love it. You can point at somebody, look in their face, and say, 'This is what I want from you and this is how I want it.'"
Bill Heidbreder, quoted in The New York Times

Sunday, April 13, 2014

The Motor of New York


"People are always writing about the energy of New York. What they really mean is the status ambitions of people in New York. That's the motor in this town. That's what makes it exciting -- and it's also what makes it awful many times."
Tom Wolfe, The New York Times' Book of New York: Stories of the People, the Streets, and the Life of the City Past and Present

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Vast Weath

Trump Park Avenue

"New York is a place of vast wealth, and between the whores and the business men there are the artists and the patrons of said art. Maybe waking up everyday and seeing all the seemingly unfathomable wealth, born of patronage, nepotism, skill, complicated criminality, luck and even talent and effort is too much; to embrace chaos is more attractive than to pursue a laid out pattern of how to dress for the job you want instead of the job you have. Who wants beauty when you and me can make the ugly?"
Elisa Ambrogio, quoted in New York Calling

Friday, April 11, 2014

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Starshine

Duke Ellington statue

"It is impossible to enter New York without feeling that something wonderful is about to happen. Whether you arrive by plane, ship, train, car or bus, bridge or tunnel, you feel the immediate excitement of starshine."
Duke Ellington, Music is My Mistress

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Your Date

Fifth Avenue

"You're never alone in New York, it's the perfect place to be single. The city is your date."
Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Sex and the City



Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Prison and Posters

Lincoln Correctional Facility

"New York: Prison towers and modern posters for soap and whiskey."
Frank Lloyd Wright, quoted in The City

Monday, April 7, 2014

Good Times

Village Vanguard

"New York is strange and frightening to me, but for my father, New York is his kind of town — fast people, good times, music, clubs, excitement."
Harvey Weinstein, A Father, a Son and CIA


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Tourist Questions

Ed Sullivan Theater

"Questions Asked By Tourists Visiting New York City:
'Does it always smell like this?'
'Do you think we'll ever see our luggage again?'
'Which way to the emergency room?'
'How do I get to Seinfeld's apartment?'
'Which way to the hookers?'
'Do what myself?'"
David Letterman, The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Fair-Weather City

Flatiron Plaza

"New York's a grand place when things are going well. It's the worst place in the world when things are bad."
Alec Waugh, Wheels Within Wheels

Friday, April 4, 2014

Foreign Body

United Nations Building

"This is how New York affects me, like a foreign body in the eye, delicious and unbearable, evoking tears of emotion and all-consuming fury."
Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays

Thursday, April 3, 2014

All The Critics Love U


"U can wear what U want 2
It doesn't matter in New York
U could cut off all your hair
I don't think they'd care in New York

All the critics love U in New York

Why U can play what U want 2
All the critics love U in New York
They won't say that U're naive
If U play what U believe in New York."
Prince, All the Critics Love U in New York

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The Only Religion

Financial District

"The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?"
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Paradise of Women

"Eve" at the Time Warner Center

"New York is the true paradise of women, where they glow and glitter in their gorgeous plumage, while the men toil and work in their dusky offices to amass the wealth that may cover their wives with diamonds to startle Europe — a city of splendour, luxury and pleasure."
Oscar Wilde, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde