Staten Island

St. George Terminal

"If you don't know what Staten Island is, it's like New York's abortion that lived."
Pete Davidson, Gothamist

Functional City

Fifth Avenue

"Another reason I love living in New York is the fact that it's a functional city. Obviously not in the psychological sense — I mean as a collection of people we're as psychotic-ally challenged as anyone else — but in a practical sense, New York functions like nowhere else on earth. Everybody does something, provides some service, everyone, everything, has a purpose."

Bella Pollen, Hunting Unicorns

Coexistence

"In its own chaotic way, New York is a triumph of coexistence interrupted by people yelling at each other."
Rebecca Solnit, Nonstop Metropolis

The Best

"New York doesn't owe you a thing. She just stands there with one hand on her hip, jutting out provocatively, saying 'Well, whaddaya want?' in that cool, nasal drawl. She wants you to make the best of what she has to offer, and in turn bring the best of you to her."
Joanne Pittaway, Chess News

New York Pots

NYC Ferry

"New York acts like it's a big melting pot, 'cause it's like all the different cultures, 'Oh, we all melt together.' And then you move here and you realize it's not a melting pot at all. It's actually a bunch of pots that want to live next to their own kinds of pots and not talk to other pots."
Nate Bargatze, Comedy Central

New York Voltage

West 34th

"There was a much higher voltage to New York than you feel on Long Island—even just walking around the giant metal forest in whose shadow we all lived. The strangest thing about coming to Manhattan after a life in the suburbs: it's never really dark outside. Not ever."
Darin Strauss, Half a Life

Manhattan Promise

Manhattan seen from Long Island City

"He'd grown up looking at the shiny promise of Manhattan from the other side of the water. He'd blocked out the incessant barking of dogs, the sounds of shouting in the street, the honking of car horns and had stared enviously at a different life. Looking across the fast-flowing tidal stretch that was the East River, he'd seen buildings reaching up to the sky and wanted to live across the water, where skyscrapers stood tall, where glass reflected light and ambition."
Sarah Morgan, Sleepless in Manhattan

Crazy Surprise

McGraw-Hill waterfall tunnel

"No matter how many years I spend in this city, it's always got another crazy surprise up its sleeve."
Maria Baez (Marisa Ramirez), Blue Bloods

Woman's City

Rose Hill

"London is a man's city, New York a woman's city, but in spite of St James's and Savile Row I believe that a man has a better time in New York, simply because it is a woman's city. There is greater immediate warmth and friendliness; there is also greater intimacy."

Alec Waugh, My Brother Evelyn & Other Profiles

East New York

East New York (Wikipedia)

"East New York: not really New York and not east of anything. Really just the heart of Brooklyn, its heart and soul, a place without pretense or hope."
Michael Stephens, The Brooklyn Book of the Dead

City of Strangers

Stephen Sondheim Theater

"It's a city of strangers,
Some come to work, some to play.
A city of strangers,
Some come to stare, some to stay.
And every day
The ones who stay
And they'll find each other
In the crowded streets and the guarded park."
Stephen Sondheim, Company

Forbidden City

Third Avenue

"When you're poor New York is a forbidden city. You can't go to movies regularly. You can't afford real dinners or drinks out anywhere nice. You can't really shop. Doors close, doormen frown, psychic salespeople sniff and ignore you."
Adam Davies, The Frog King

New York Visitors

Pier 17

"Visitors always think New York is like their town, but bigger. New York is not like any other town. It is all dupes, all risky, and its own theatre."
Ethan Mordden, Buddies

City Love

Broadway

"That’s the thing about New Yorkers. Always talking about how much you love your city. Here in Chicago, we just do."
Rahm Emanuel, Politico

New York Air

"New York is who I am, who I'll always be. When you meet someone born and bred in New York, you can spot them a mile off. We just give off that New York air."
Huey Morgan, Huey Morgan’s Rebel Heroes

Excellence

"It is in New York that excellence is spotted, and rewarded; and when excellence fades, New York instantly, without a moment's remorse, turns its head away, looking for the latest corporate, artistic, or athletic bloom."
William F. Buckley Jr., New York Magazine

Vortex

"New York is becoming a kind of vortex: whatever boils over anywhere else in the world spills into New York. Elsewhere they make men flee, but here they welcome the fleeing man with a smile."
José Martí, Selected Writings

Emigrants

JFK airport

"We're the emigrant couple that New Yorkers always talk about. The what-if people who left New York after musing for years about somewhere warmer, quieter, softer. Dreaming about bailing is the city's favorite pastime, of course, right after obsessing about real estate prices, hating the Red Sox, and complaining about those giant fucking golf umbrellas on the sidewalk."
Amy Haimerl, Village Voice

Battle and Meditation

Fort Jay

"New York is so big that a battle might go on at one end, and poets meditate sonnets at another."
Wallace Stevens, Letters of Wallace Stevens

Center of the World

Columbus Circle

"Columbus Circle is the center of Manhattan. Manhattan is the center of New York. New York is the center of America, and America is the center of the world. So we are sitting in the center of the world, right?"
Imbolo Mbue, Behold the Dreamers

Beautiful Things

Miss Quisqueya USA in Long Island City

"Manhattan—this city where all things beautiful are welcomed and measured and, if not immediately adopted, then at least tried on for size."
Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

American Dream

West Chelsea

"New York is for me the most dazzling example of the American Dream at work. The lessons it teaches—lessons of hope, opportunity, struggle, and accomplishment—can help support us through the good times and sustain us when hard times come."
Donald Trump, The America We Deserve

What It Means to Be a New Yorker

Clinton Castle

"What it means to be a New Yorker is to be the best human being you can be, to do the best with your life you can do, to dream the biggest dreams and to get along with everyone else, to demonstrate that we can make this wonderful patchwork quilt of a place not only work but demonstrate to the rest of the world that people from different backgrounds and experiences not only can get along but build a better future."
Hillary Clinton, New York Senate Debate

Broadway

Broadway (Pixabay)

"There is something on Broadway that is not to be found at home, and everyone who walks along the great street begins to look for it. No other place is so blatant and secret, so empty and alive, so unreal and familiar, so private and noisy."
Maeve Brennan, The Long-Winded Lady

The Wall

New York City Marathon (Tom Thai / Wikimedia Commons)

"At 19 miles, when most runners run out of steam and you hit what they call 'the wall,' is the exact moment you cross into the South Bronx. So here, they combine running and fleeing."
Wayne Federman, Comedy Central

Cozy

"I fucking love New York. It just makes sense to me in a way no other place does. Growing up in the suburbs wasn't for me: big houses separated by big yards and fences on wide streets. Big parking lots outside of huge stores. When you're in the city, everyone is so unquestionably close to everyone else, physically, that there's no choice but to bump into other humans at all times. It always seemed so cozy in comparison to Long Island."
Amy Schumer, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

Forced Meeting

"New York is that city where the world is forced to meet itself."
Junot Díaz, Time Out New York

Bizarre

Williamsburg Bridge

"New York is bizarre: it's splendid, it's baroque and it's modern. It's as solid and complex as the bridges that link its five boroughs into one titanic, magnificent monolith. Yet it's also a tired old lady watching her days drip by, days numbered by slums, crime, strikes, not enough money to meet too many demands: a confused lady who dreams her dreams of passing glory in the midst of harsh reality."
Louis Sabin, Boy's Life

Motivator

Downtown Manhattan Heliport

"New York makes me think bigger. I am poor in New York compared to other people. No matter how hard I work and how much money I make, I feel poor here. That motivates me. That is why I chose this city."
Sam Ovens, The Epoch Times

History

Financial District

"Boston has a unique historical background; New York is where history is made."
Baraska Baskad, On Becoming a Bostonian