Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Present Moment

Long Island City

"New York is, first and foremost, the present moment. It is the present moment without any more relationship to the future than to the past. It is the present moment -- whole, pure, total, isolated, disconnected. Upon arrival here, one has the feeling of having left not other countries behind, but other ages."

Julio Camba, La ciudad automática

Monday, December 30, 2019

Discovering New York

Central Park

"New York is a great place. Except that so many people don't know it. Either they're afraid, so they don't come into the city. Or they're not afraid, and they come into the city, but all they do is go from one Gap to another. And maybe stroll through Central Park. But that is not discovering the city."
Ann M. Martin, The Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #6

Friday, December 27, 2019

Confident Wildlife



"I am not a fan of rats or pigeons. In New York City, they have become very confident. When I was a child, you went on the subways and the rats would stay down on the tracks, but now they hang out on the platform."
Julia Stiles, The Guardian

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Market



"New York will never be anything to me but a market, and who wants to live in the market? I've enjoyed myself this winter, I've met some delightful people... But New York is New York, and I don't belong in it."
Lyle Saxon, The Life and Selected Letters of Lyle Saxon

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

December Lights

New York City (Pixabay)

"The beauty of that light may be deepened by the New Yorker’s subconscious sense of living in an oceanic city at the edge of the cold, gray, scary Atlantic, destroyer of Titanic. Against its dark oceanic background, December lights make the city seem – strange word for New York – cozy."
Russell Baker, The New York Times 

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Darling City

Rockefeller Center (Pixabay)

"How beautiful you are at all times. I adore you with all my heart, my darling city, all the months of the year. But your magic is revealed at its best near Christmas."
Husam Fakhr, Story of Music in Grand Central

Monday, December 23, 2019

Money and Power



"Everything in New York City is about connections. It’s who you know and how much money you have. It’s really sad. And I am not saying I’m like that. But that’s what New York is: money and power."
PC Peterson, New York Magazine

Friday, December 20, 2019

Series of Small Towns

Main Street

"To newcomers, Manhattan seems like an
 endless succession of strangers. But to those who have lived there long enough, the island becomes a series of small towns stitched together into a city of eight million."

Richard Castle, Heat Storm

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Unremarkable New York



"As New York City enters the third decade of the twenty-first century, it is in imminent danger of becoming something it has never been before: unremarkable. It is approaching a state where it will no longer be a significant cultural entity but the world's largest gated community, with a few cupcake shops here and there. For the first time in its history, New York is--well, boring."
Kevin Baker, The Fall of a Great American City

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Inside a Giant's Room



"New York seems like it's built for people fifty feet tall; it makes you feel so small, like you're inside a giant's room."
Norman Spinrad, No Direction Home

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

The Many Sides of New York



"Nothing's the matter with New York except that it's got so many sides it can be whatever one chooses to make it, so that a weak character like me gets too many chances to increase his weaknesses here."
Booth Tarkington, Delphi Collected Works of Booth Tarkington 

Monday, December 16, 2019

Hard Apprenticeship

Brooklyn Bridge (Pixabay)

"Loving New York takes work; it is a hard apprenticeship."
Philippe Roger, The American Enemy

Friday, December 13, 2019

Roaring Street



"Beyond my roofs and chimney piles
Sunset crumbles, ragged, dire;
The roaring street is hung for miles
With fierce electric fire.
Shrill and high, newsboys cry
The gross of the planet's destiny
Through one more sullen gyre."
William Vaughn Moody, In New York

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Champagne



"New York is very exciting, also very tiring, and the more I see of New York, outside of the temporary exhilaration it gives you — very much like champagne, great while you drink it but not so hot the day after — I prefer California."
Jesse L. Lasky, Hollywood Royalty

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Dirty and Fascinating



"Just two days in Manhattan and you find yourself looking for a place to wash your handkerchief after you wipe your forehead and it comes away black. Is there a dirtier or more fascinating city anywhere in the land? The answer to both parts of the question has to be positively negative."
Herb Caen, SF Gate

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Zoo York



"I like to go downtown, to the West Village — it’s kind of a zoo. And I like to go to the zoo."
Jerry Seinfeld, New York Magazine

Monday, December 9, 2019

New York Has No Home

Union Square

"New York has no home. It sits in restaurants and barrooms day and night. It is a city of noisome tenements and narrow flats so small that people file themselves away therein like papers in a pigeonhole."
Alfred Lewis, The Boss and How We Came to Rule New York

Friday, December 6, 2019

Magical Town

Sixth Avenue (Pixabay)



"The astonishing light that is Thomas Edison's gift to New York and the exciting busyness of crowded streets make the city feel as if a great festival is in progress. Indeed, one is. The city is celebrating the triumph of commerce. At times the place suggests an absurdly oversized village, and please let us not argue the point. I am too delighted with this ravishing December New York to engage in sour disputation. Yes, I have seen the beggars with their cardboard cups upheld. It is a tough town, too, a terribly tough town, but also this December -- I'll say it anyhow -- magical."
Russell Baker, The New York Times

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Ebbing Away



"The Manhattan harbor no longer meant much, either. The channel was not deep enough for the world's largest ships, and the skyline couldn't compare with Shanghai or Singapore. The new World Trade Center was respectable enough, yet was just another symbol, really, for it was a historical certainty that the money would ebb away from New York as it had drained from Paris and Brussels the century before. That is, if another massive hurricane didn't doom it first."
Colin Harrison, You Belong to Me

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Joy, Happiness and Excitement



"The minute I got off the plane, I felt this huge release of joy, happiness and excitement. It was like I had been waiting for 22 years to come home. It was quite thrilling. I loved the energy and endless opportunities. Anything can happen here. That kind of energy either drives people crazy and defeats them or feeds them. I happen to be one of those people who feels energized in New York. I'm home. "
Mary Beth Peil, ShowTickets

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Make Your Own Luck



"New York is a bitch goddess. She gives success to some, keeps it from others. What I say is, make your own luck. Reach out and take what you want."
A.X. Ahmad, The Last Taxi Ride

Monday, December 2, 2019

New York Standards

Queens

"It's a funny thing about Manhattan. I love to look at the city, especially in the early morning, but I rarely go there. Queens is my beat and has been for many years, which makes me an official hick by New York standards. It could only be worse if I lived on Staten Island. Even the ravaged Bronx is cooler than Queens."
Stephen Solomita, Mercy Killing