Thursday, November 30, 2017

Biggest Melting Pot

Jane's Carousel


"I returned to Brooklyn because it's closest to my heart, and I have history here, which I wanted to share with my children. Let's face it, the world has changed everywhere, but NYC is still the biggest melting pot in the world. The diversity in culture is unmatched."
Debi Mazar, NYCGo

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Self Worship

Central Park and Fifth Avenue (Pixabay)

"Rome and New York were impressive, but they knew they were. They had the beauty of a vain woman who had squeezed herself into her favourite dress after hours of careful self worship."
Leonardo D'Onofrio, Old Country

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Futurist City

Cornell Tech

"New York is the Futurist city, the Baden Baden of that dying stench called Europe, the ironic gargantuan offspring of the senility, the debilitating spirituality and black breath of the European succubus."
Benjamin De Casseres, Mirrors of New York

Monday, November 27, 2017

Living in New York

East 13th Street


"I once said to someone that one doesn't come to New York for beauty. I said that's what Paris, or Iceland, is for. I said one comes to New York to live in New York, with all its noise and trash and rats in the subway and taxicabs stuck in crosstown traffic jams."
Bill Hayes, Insomniac City

Sunday, November 26, 2017

The Now

East 13th


"New York might be beautiful but if you stopped to admire it, you were cooked. Each new block was an island, each street a narrow ocean. As you put the last block behind you, each crossing washed you clean. Who had time to dwell on the then when the crush of bodies forced you to pay attention to the now?"
Brendan Mathews, The World of Tomorrow

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Human

Riverside Park

"New York is a huge mass of scrambled humanity, — many races, creeds, colors, — but it is wistfully, pathetically human, after all."
Joseph Fort Newton, Preaching in New York

Friday, November 24, 2017

Mama

North Williamsburg


"To me, New York is Mama. Every time I've ever knocked on its door—no matter what time of day, no matter what condition I've found myself—New York City opens to me. Smacks me upside the head a little bit on my way in, like, 'What's the matter with you now, you big stupid dummy?' but always lets me in. Clears a space for me. Finds a bed for me. Makes room at the table."
Elizabeth Gilbert, Never Can Say Goodbye

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Sense of Destiny

Williamsburg Bridge


"The thing you have to understand about New Yorkers is that they tend to have a sense of destiny. By dint of their location they think they are invincible, indestructible. Impervious to pretty much anything and everything you care to throw at them."
Dylan Jones, The Biographical Dictionary of Popular Music

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Magic Name

Manhattan Avenue


"New York! How many bosoms have swelled with rapture, how many cheeks have blushed with shame, how many hearts have been filled with joy, and how many have sunk in despair, at the sound of the magic name of New York!"
Maturin Murray Ballou, The Turkish spies Ali Abubeker Kaled, and Zenobia Marrita

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Caravanserai

Four Seasons Hotel

"New York is the last city in the world in which I would live. But then it is to be regarded merely as a vast hotel, a caravanserai both for America and Europe."
Fredrika Bremer, America of the Fifties

Monday, November 20, 2017

Sense of Humor

People's Improv Theater

"New York is funny. It's the only city where you have to have a sense of humor to survive."
Alan King, New York Magazine

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Insomnia

Midtown


"New York is very freeing, and, because of my insomnia, it's the only place that can really keep up with me.  When I find a city that can keep me busy until four in the morning without having anything to do with prostitution, I'm there."
Jamie Blake, Billboard

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Suburbanization

North Williamsburg


"New York was the unbridled engine of the nation's progressive culture and creativity, sustaining a diversity of people, feeding the world with art, ideas, and ways of life that pushed the boundaries of convention. But now it seems this period has come to an end. The spirit of the city as we knew it has vanished in the shadow of luxury condo towers, rampant greed, and suburbanization."
Jeremiah Moss, Vanishing New York

Friday, November 17, 2017

No First Class

W train


"When you're on the subway, there's no first class. Everyone's there together. I have kind of a joke I do when people ask 'why would you raise your kids in New York City?' And I say, 'So they don't end up like you.'"
Jim Gaffigan, NYCGo

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Concrete, Gridlock, Neighbors



"Miles of concrete, world-class gridlock, neighbors who won't even press the down button in the elevator for you: that's New York."
Dilys Winn, The New York Times

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Mandatory or Forbidden



"New York is a funny place. Living here is either mandatory or forbidden, it seems; there's no middle way."
Amanda Cross, Honest Doubt

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Sound and Fury



"New York is a state of mind, full of sound and fury signifying nothing."
Edward D. Hoch, City of Brass

Monday, November 13, 2017

Human Kindness

West 14th


"I do not exaggerate when I say that New York is unique in the history of human kindness. New York is not a problem. New York is a stroke of genius. From its earliest days, this city has been a lifeboat for the homeless, a larder for the hungry, a living library for the intellectually starved, a refuge not only for the oppressed but also for the creative. New York is and has been the most open city in the world, and that is its greatness."
Ed Koch, Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City

Sunday, November 12, 2017

City of Love

Oculus


"People say that Paris is the city of love, but for Raia, New York deserves the title more. It's impossible not to fall in love with the city like it's almost impossible not to fall in love in the city."
Ika Natassa, The Architecture of Love

Saturday, November 11, 2017

New York Subways

Times Square subway station

"I miss New York. I miss the subways, believe it or not. So, what I do is I have a tape recording of just the sound of the subway, and every morning, I get up, I go into my closet, I close the door, I put the tape on, and I just hang there with my clothes for a while. Then I turn to my overcoat, and I go, 'No, you shut up, pal, alright?' Then I stab myself a few times, and I feel like I'm home."
Gary Lazer, Comedy Central

Friday, November 10, 2017

Rottweiler



"New Yorkers have a reputation for skin so thick it feels like rock so we adore anything that undermines this idea and confirms our secret view of ourselves as neighborly and congenial. It's the social equivalent of owning a really docile Rottweiler."
Sloane Crosley, The New York Times

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Most Wonderful Street

Broadway


"The most wonderful street in the universe is Broadway. It is a world within itself. High and low, rich and poor, pass along at a rate peculiar to New York, and positively bewildering to a stranger."
Frank Rich, quoted in Historic Landmarks of Old New York

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Snow Summit

Gantry Plaza State Park


"Leaving Manhattan is like retreating from a snow summit. The very air seems to relax about you. The electric atmosphere softens, the noise stills, the colours blur and fade, the pressure eases, the traffic thins. Soon you are out of the city's spell."
Jan Morris, Coast to Coast

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Electric Undercurrent

Midtown Manhattan (Pixabay)

"Sex. Power. Culture. Success. New York City thrives on this heady cocktail like no other place in the world, fueling its legendary energy with an electric undercurrent of our collective hopes, dreams, and fantasies."
Heather Stimmler-Hall, Naughty New York

Monday, November 6, 2017

Urban Poetry



"This is New York. We live in one great ugly town. Not being too hung up on beauty is what makes life here possible, even thrilling. In exchange for surrendering refinement, we get a kind of urban poetry that is the envy of the world. Sometimes it takes outsiders to see it. Often, outsiders introduce new rhymes. The beauty resides, in some sense, in staying an outsider."
Herbert Muschamp, Hearts of the City

Sunday, November 5, 2017

New York City Marathon

(Photo: Steven Pisano / Wikimedia Commons)

"I do love the New York City Marathon, though. That's really exciting when the world's fastest anorexics come to town."
Jonathan Corbett, Comedy Central

Saturday, November 4, 2017

New York Addiction



"The city's lure to rewrite a life, the addiction to 'anything is possible if your game is strong enough' is swift. Either you do whatever is necessary to maintain the high or you nearly OD and in a fitful moment of clarity decide to go cleanleaving it forever and relegating the experience to a 'when I was younger I lived in New York' story to be dusted off."
Tamara N. Houston, Waiting for Jules

Friday, November 3, 2017

Witch's Brew

Manhattan (Photo: Pixabasy)

"The configuration of the street grid, and the sordid tangle of streets below 14th Street, and the insanity of millions crammed into a small space, and the weekday surge when millions more poured in from the surrounding area. The weird angle of the Empire State Building from Bowery. Everyone desperate to bilk the last dollar. These are the ingredients of a witch's brew, the undeniable black magic of Manna-hatta."
Jarett Kobek, The Future Won't Be Long

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Shining City of Our Dreams

Gantry Plaza and Manhattan skyline


"The romance of New York is always something that has recently passed away; so vast and clamorous is the actual city that enchantment kicks in only over a distance of time and space. From Henry James to Dos Passos and Fitzgerald to the present, the shining city of our dreams is always located a decade, or an ocean, away."
Jay McInerney, New York Magazine

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Visualization of the Universe

Kips Bay


"New York, to me, is the visualization of the entire universe. Paris is Paris, it's not the world. Italy is Italy. New York is the world. It is the bridge. It's the spot that expresses the world."
Donna Karan, The Great Fashion Designers