Monday, December 31, 2018

Occam's Razor

Times Square subway station


"What makes New Year's so unpleasant is an Occam's Razor of a reason: It’s at midnight. Midnight is a terribly inconvenient time to have a holiday in New York. Part of the magnetism of the city is the ease with which one can get from Point A to Point B and the freedom to be completely drunk when doing so. It would be so much better for everyone if we could just move New Year's to 8 p.m. or 2 a.m. — some logical hour where the threat of being in transit at the precise moment that the next 12 months of your life are christened does not loom so large."
Sloane Crosley, The New York Times

Friday, December 28, 2018

Tenacity and Energy



"There's a tenacity and energy here. There's a hardiness you need as well to live in New York, simply because of the conditions alone. You gotta have your wits about you."
Emily Blunt, Evening Standard

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Overrated



"New York is a very much overrated burg. It merely keeps its rep by its press agents' continually harping on the wonder of it. There isn't a town west of the Mississippi of any size that can't show you a better time."
Harry Truman, Dear Bess

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Southern Exposure



"New York is a large town on the west coast of the Atlantic ocean, and is connected to America by the Brooklyn Bridge and the 14th street ferry so that as many people as possible from  New Jersey and Des Moines Iowa can get here at the same time. Southern exposure and pleasant hours."
William Faulkner, quoted in William Faulkner: Self-Presentation and Performance

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Most Wonderful Time

Rockefeller Center (Michael Vadon / Wikimedia Commons)

"While there's no place like home, there's also no place like Christmastime in New York City. There's something so magical about being in The City That Never Sleeps during the most wonderful time of the year."
Rachel Chapman, Elite Daily

Monday, December 24, 2018

Niceville



"Normally New Yorkers had a different two-word greeting for one another, but today it was nothing but 'Merry Christmas!' from Yankee Stadium to the Statue of Liberty. Even the urgent blat of the car horns was more subdued than usual. It was, Caroline noticed, like some other place entirely: Niceville. Politetown. Haveanicedayton."
Kyle Smith, Caroline in the City

Friday, December 21, 2018

Dirty Word



"New York is a dirty word. Word. There's something that goes down in New York called Opposite Side of the Street Parking. What it basically means is that fools have to move their cars like every other day in order to make way for the street sweepers. You know, the big single person-manned monsters with the big furry wheel up front; the blasted thing spins and scoops up bottle caps and condoms and adds scraps from loose-leaf notebooks, the remnants of what's left of the chaos that comes with living in the epicenter of all galaxies."
Sacha Jenkins, Bombshell

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Harlem



"Overcrowded and exploited politically and economically, Harlem is the scene and symbol of the Negro's perpetual alienation in the land of his birth."
Ralph Ellison, The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

New York Sunrise



"New York is a bit frightening, you know, a bit too big and tall and loud, but the sunrise made it better. It kind of put New York in its place."
Wendela Lumley, Vermilion Skies

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Party All Night Long



"You're new in New York
So look at the view
Stop standing around
While the city flies past you
New York never sleeps
Party all night long
Get up on your feet
Dance from night til dawn."
Anna Adams, A French Girl in New York

Monday, December 17, 2018

Women of New York

East 18th


"The characteristic aspect of the women of New York is that they are in motion, perpetually active, and that one would have to photograph them at a speed used for ballet dancers or athletes."
Anaïs NinThe Diary of Anaïs Nin

Friday, December 14, 2018

Big Monster

East 18th


"New York is like one big monster, and every day, on the back end of this monster, lots of broken dreams and empty pockets are blowing out that way."
Morten Angelo, Jauntful

Thursday, December 13, 2018

Magical Cocktail


"I can walk the New York City streets for ever. The stores blink with Christmas lights, and gigantic white snowflakes dangle high above the street. It is a magical cocktail of festivity and consumption that only New York ever pulls off."
Polly Williams, A Good Girl Comes Undone

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Central Park



"Along Central Park West, the taller apartment buildings jutted over the trees in solitary fashion like commuters on a railroad platform in the hours before the morning rush. The sky was Tiepolo blue.  After a week of sudden cold, the leaves had turned, creating a bright orange canopy that stretched all the way to Harlem. It was almost as if the park was a jewel box and the sky was the lid. You had to give Olmsted credit: He was perfectly right to have bulldozed the poor to make way for it."
Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Romance and Depravity



"New York is a place where romance and depravity co-exist — as do cold steel and soft beauty, danger and desire, and some of the best art the world has produced."
Kay Larson, New York Magazine

Monday, December 10, 2018

December in New York

Radio City Music Hall (Wikimedia Commons)


"It is December that is New York's month for people of all ages. The lights are a big part of it. Because night comes in midafternoon at this season, long before quitting time, the office towers blaze with light. A million windows lit in the city's gigantic file-cabinet towers work something like a miracle. By daylight these overbearing office boxes are often monstrous. In a December midafternoon, however, even the nightmarish architecture of Sixth Avenue becomes beautiful."
Russell Baker, The New York Times

Friday, December 7, 2018

Falling in Love

Dumbo

"Falling in love with New York or in New York is risky. Only the brave need apply.” 
Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Creative People

Fifth Avenue


"New York is like a dysfunctional relationship. I’ve been wanting to move for at least 5 of the 12 years I’ve lived here. I crave to be somewhere with lot’s of sky, and less people, but I can’t seem to leave. The concentration of creative people is what’s kept me here."
Roeg Cohen, Beautiful Bizarre

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Training Ground

Central Park

"The problems of New York, and what makes it so explosive and so powerful a myth, is that it is a training ground where the rest of the West can read its future."
Jerome Charyn, Conversations with Jerome Charyn

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Way In

Gantry Plaza


"New York is all about finding a way in; once you’re there, they’ll have to carry you out."
Jonathan Galassi, Words Without Borders

Monday, December 3, 2018

Weird

Broadway


"I figured: It's New York; people are allowed to be weird."
Maggie (Najat Arkadan Washington), Law & Order: SVU

Friday, November 30, 2018

King Kong

East 13th


"Cities are distinguished by the forms of catastrophe they have assumed, which is the animating aspect of their charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or the vertical bombardment, the Towering Inferno."
Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings

Thursday, November 29, 2018

New York of the 80s



"I remember the real New York of the 80s, when in a single night you could score some weed, catch a Times Square porno and get stabbed in the neck by a coked up Lou Reed."
Stephen ColbertThe Colbert Report 

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Change in Every Corner



"Each corner means change
here in New York
Where else can you wander
and hear every language?
We fight like a marriage
then share the same carriage."
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cheering For Me Now

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Less Legit

Park Avenue South


"Manhattan is less legit than it once was, for sure, but this is still the city that never sleeps. It is also the city of 'Behold the field in which I grow my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren.'"
Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Monday, November 26, 2018

Crisis Hot Line




"New York is like the crisis hot lines that tell potential suicides, 'You are never alone.' Here, you really aren't ever alone. Everywhere you look, there is someone to remind you they are there. There they are, crossing against a light. And there, catching your hair in the corner of their open umbrella. And there, letting their fluffy, white poodle crap in the middle of the sidewalk. Everywhere you turn, there is someone else to remind you just how miserable they are, too."
Koren Zailckas, Smashed

Friday, November 23, 2018

Magnificent Accomplishment



"From my bedroom I can see both the sparkling Hudson River and the lights of the city. I wake up every morning to this beautiful light on the buildings and I think of what a magnificent accomplishment New York is."
Kathleen Turner, Send Yourself Roses

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Thankful to Live in New York



"Let us count the ways we are thankful to live in New York, the greatest city in the world: We are thankful that we can find any type of food we desire within a five-minute walk of our homes. We are thankful that most of us don't need cars. We are thankful that we don't care about a candidate's color, religion or ethnicity -- or those of his spouse or family -- when we cast our votes, only that we think he or she can do the best job for us. We are thankful that we live in a city where you are respected, not mocked, for being literate and believing in science."
Mike Vogel, Newsday

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Whote World

Unisphere (Pixabay)


"If you take the 7 train, you'll go through Long Island City; the Filipino part of Sunnyside; then you go through Woodside, which is Irish, Colombian, Central American; then you go to 74th Street, which is Indian; then you're in Corona, which is Mexican. Then you go to Shea Stadium—I mean Citi Field—and there are Chinese and Korean people in Flushing. Every stop is a neighborhood. You can walk down Roosevelt Avenue and you've lived in a whole world."
Colin Quinn, NYCGo

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Winter Premonition



"Black clouds veined the gold sky, like marble. A threat glowed, one that was not as immediate as a storm warning, but rather a vague promise of hardship. The premonition of New York winter."
Jardine Libaire, Here Kitty Kitty

Monday, November 19, 2018

Shopping Mall



"I still love New York but I also agree it's been turned into a big shopping mall with most of the flavor gone. But I still find the East Village and Lower East Side exciting and cool, it still has one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants and bars. But it is much cleaner and safer and expensive. It's a shame the creative types got priced out and there's no scene anymore. I know I'd be annoyed as fuck with all the people and the babies and the strollers. It's a whole other world."
Sean Yseult, New York Rock

Friday, November 16, 2018

The Problem with Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan (Wikimedia Commons)


"The problem with Manhattan is, everyone comes here eventuallyall your old friends, enemies, lovers, demons. People you met on vacation in Nepal will wind up beating you out for a taxi. The bully who called you 'Dog Breath' all through first grade will turn up at your local diner, and will remember you didn't come to his sixth birthday party, which is where the whole trouble began. Don’t come to the big city to become anonymous. New York is like Oz: The Wicked Witch of the West turns out to be the lady who didn't like your dog back in Kansas."
Alisa Sheckley, The Better to Hold You





Thursday, November 15, 2018

Child Again

Jane's Carousel


"The best thing about being here in New York is that everything is new and strange, and so I become new to myself. It's like I am a child again."
Alisa Kwitney, Sex as a Second Language

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Giving Place



"New York used to be a giving place, a place that gave more than it took. Now it takes more than it gives."
Archibald MacLeish, quoted in Architectural Digest

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Spanish



"Spanish is the language of the early morning in Manhattan. At the bagel place where I get my coffee, everybody, customers and counter help alike, are papi or flaco or hermano—or addressed by country of origin. Doesn't matter if Spanish is is even your language. At this hour, it's what's spoken. It's how things are done."
Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw

Monday, November 12, 2018

New York Stories



"New York is certainly the best city for stories. If you want a lot of variety, if you want a lot of excitement, New York is perfect. It's the biggest city in the country, there is a lot of crime in NY, a lot of places you can use for background. For sure I am lucky that New York was the city I knew."
Stan Lee, Soul Crime. New York

Friday, November 9, 2018

Origami



"He tells me about New York and how it opens like an origami figure, showing more dimensions every day, more hidden restaurants and art galleries, more tucked-away stores and more people, always more people, all of them with stories."
Lauren Oliver, Broken Things

Thursday, November 8, 2018

Outer Boroughs

Queens


"His speech was not cowboy laconic but rather Queens jive, the wage-slave patois of that tiny throwback slice of the city workforce that was actually born somewhere out there in the B- and C-list boroughs, the ones separated from the main island by waterways that served as velvet ropes."
Kyle Smith, Caroline in the City

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Human Race

Coney Island


"New York was just like the human race. Sure you could scare it, slow it down, maybe even halt it for a little while. But it kept right the hell on going. No matter what. That was the best thing about New York City. "
James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, Tick Tock

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Contagious

NYU Langone Health


"I started to realize how well New York suited me. Its energy and aggressiveness were very compatible with my own. New York is very contagious. It had gotten into my blood."
Josie Cruz Natori, On Our Own Terms

Monday, November 5, 2018

New York Whims



"In order to survive in New York City one has to be willing to bend to the city's whims. Bend to the city's whims! I thought. Bend or perish!"
Patty Yumi Cottrell, Sorry to Disrupt the Peace

Sunday, November 4, 2018

New York City Marathon

New York City Marathon (Jim Henderson / Wikimedia Commons)


"Everyone wins the marathon. We all have the same feeling at the start—nervous, anxious, excited. It is a broader, richer, and even with twenty-seven thousand peoplemore intimate experience than I found when racing in trackNew York is the marathon that all the biggest stars want to win, but has also been the stage for an array of human stories more vast than any other sporting event."
Grace Waitz, 1,001 Pearls of Runners' Wisdom

Friday, November 2, 2018

Quality of Life



"A new report claims that California is the state with the worst quality of life. 'Ha, ha!" said a New Yorker right before a rat fell in his mouth."
Seth Meyers, Late Night with Seth Meyers

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Chinatown

Chinatown (Wikimedia Commons)


"We turned right on Allen and right again onto East Broadway where it crosses under the Manhattan Bridge, and only then did a different city emerge. We'd come into a narrow pocket on the edge of Chinatown, an immigrant neighborhood that sloped toward the river like it might never find its footing.Life down here was lived in the open. Drying clothes billowed from fire escapes. Asian men huddled over games passed down through centuries. Women watched or shuffled past, weighed down not by what they carried but something heavier--the hard slog of it all."
David Goodwillie, American Subversive

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Halloween

Third Avenue


"In recent years Halloween, sick of dressing up as Robin to New Year's Eve's Batman, has taken the Most Intolerable New York Holiday crown. Perhaps it’s because this city has such a buffet of flimsily contained id to begin with. There are a whole lot of people living here who don’t need to let loose on Halloween — their psyches are pretty unstructured on an average Tuesday."
Sloane Crosley, The New York Times

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Manhattan Noise

Midtown Manhattan


"The noise of Manhattan hit her like a brick wall, a solid slap in the face. A thick cloud of sound, woven tightly of individual threads—the roar of conversation, the thumping footfalls of the walking throngs, the dull gratings and booms of various construction sites, sirens, helicopter blades, music, the great soft whoosh of the Hudson."
Rachel Heng, Suicide Club

Monday, October 29, 2018

Dreamscape

Jane's Carousel and Manhattan Bridge


"The imagination is well nourished in New York, which to many seems like a city that already has the mythical character of a dreamscape."
Janet Allon, The New York Times

Friday, October 26, 2018

Reason for Being

Financial District


"I had spent much of my childhood in this part of Manhattan (my father ran a moderately sized investment house) and from an early age I'd been struck by the fantastic activity that surrounded the getting and keeping of money. This activity could be alternatively seductive and repellant, but by 1896 it was unarguably New York's strongest reason for being
Caleb Carr, The Alienist

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Energetic

Central Park

"New York is such a fascinating city. It's a city that attracts and welcomes so many characters, but it can also be very cold and unwelcoming sometimes. The city is very vibrant and energetic, but it can quickly spit you out if you're weak and not vibrant."
Andrew Dosunmu, The Village Voice

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Survivor

NYC ferry


"I love New York City
She's lived and died
So many times, yeah!
Life is always tough
On New York City, oh lord
But she is fine, she always survives, yeah!"
Lenny Kravitz, New York City