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