Love at First Flight

NYC

"I fell in love with New York the second I saw it. The first time I visited was in 1996 for the premiere of Emma, and even from the plane, looking down at the streets below, I said to myself, 'I'm going to live there!' I had never known a city that made me feel giddy."
Alan Cumming, Baggage

No Interaction

Baruch Way

"It's striking that with such diversity of people, everyone is absort in their own world. In Latin America you walk down the street and people interact more, they look at each other in the eye. In New York it's different: people don't make eye contact. Interaction is almost non-existent."
María Mariño, El Destape 

The City Never Sleeps

Madison Square Park

"New York has always felt like home to me. I love that the city never sleeps and that there’s always something new and inspiring going on. New York is just that city for me."
Jennifer Morrison, New York City Monthly

We Have Enough

Statue of Liberty and Staten Island Ferry

"It is a fact that New York is the only city on earth today that is not out of luck, not in a state of siege, not in the clutch of evil invaders, not in tragic travail and shortage and exhaustion fighting for its life! The only very great metropolis left in a position to have everything that you expect of a great metropolis, unless it is Rio de Janeiro which I do not know … We have talent enough, money enough, liberty enough. No other city has; it is up to us."
Glenway Wescott, A Visit to Priapus and Other Stories

Drunk in New York

Mott Street

"One of the things that I truly love about New York is that you have to be a complete and total schmuck to get lost; the entire city is set up like a grid. Even if you realize that you are going the wrong way, all you have to do is turn around and walk in the opposite direction. That is of course, unless you are drunk, and we all were."
Russell Andresen, Memoirs of a Jewish Vampire

Christmas in New York

Rockefeller Center

"Rockettes are warming up their kicks (bum-bum-ba-da-da-da)
Radio City sold out of all of their tickets
The windows on Fifth Avenue
Are dressed up and they're telling you
Suddenly it's Christmas in New York."
Lea Michele, Christmas in New York

Filthy Streets

Third Avenue

"Don't get me wrong—New York is an exciting city and there's always a lot going on. It's full of energy and it has a unique 'vibe' all  its own. But it's crowded, loud, hurried, intense, and it just seems like its streets are filthy. Even when the trash gets picked up, you always want to burn your shoes after you've walked the New York streets."
Mike Huckabee, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy

Holiday Cheer

College Walk at Columbia University

"Rachel Conti loved New York at Christmas. Although a visit to the city was always a treat, at this time of year Manhattan was truly at its finest: all decked out in sparkle and full of holiday cheer."
Melissa Hill, Something from Tiffany's

Looking Toward the Future

Four Freedoms Park

"New York is a place where it doesn’t matter where you come from, it’s all about people who may not have a past but look toward the future."
Stefano Tonchi, Interview Magazine

Urban Snow Globe

Penn Station

"New York at Christmastime is a magical place. It’s just this spectacular urban snow globe."
David Frankel, Tribute

No Floor

Financial District

"New York didn't feel like it had a ceiling and still doesn't. But it also can feel like it doesn't have a floor."
Marc Hundley, Vice 

Fierce Women

Lower East Side

"If I permanently lived in New York City, I'd be unstoppable. Can you believe that there are women who are just born here and can freely choose to continue living their fiercest lives here? The luck they possess is almost unfathomable to me."
Melina Maria Morry, The Manhattan Mishap

Kids in the City

Jane's Carousel

"Once, in college, a group of my transplant friends had unanimously agreed they 'could never raise kids in the city,' and I was shocked. It isn’t just that I loved growing up in the city—it’s that every time I see kids sleepily shuffling along en masse at the Met, or setting their boom box down on the train to break-dance for tips, or standing in awe in front of a world-class violinist playing beneath Rockefeller Center, I think, How amazing it is to be a part of this, to get to share this place with all these people."
Emily Henry, Book Lovers

Thrillingly Familiar

Park Avenue

"New York is a city that feels thrillingly familiar from the first moment you walk its streets. Blurs of yellow as taxis speed by; plumes of steam rising from the streets; towering skyscrapers and ubiquitous hotdog carts – cinema has made all of these things both expected and iconic."
Sarah Rodrigues, The Telegraph

Missing New York

Lower East Side mural

"I missed New York, I missed the Met. I missed the lit scene. I missed the warehouse parties with good techno. I missed the subway and the parks and how people totally ignored you on the street."
Liara Roux, Whore of New York

Roots in New York

Third Avenue

"New York was a great place to live if you had roots there. If you were part of it. But some people weren't born for steel jungles and the fast-paced lifestyle and—let's face it—the cost of living. I used to love that I blended in what the crowd, that I was another face among faces, another writer chasing their dreams in the neighborhood coffee shop. But the longer I lived there, the more gum littered the sidewalk and rust crept in."
Ashley Poston, The Dead Romantics

Weirdest Weirdo

Broadway

"I love that about New York. You can be the weirdest weirdo walking down the street, and no one cares."
Tucker Shaw, When You Call My Name

Misconceptions

Mulberry Street

"I’m so used to encountering people who say, 'Oh, you live in New York? Isn’t it dirty, isn’t it busy? Is it crazy?' And I feel like I spent my whole life since moving here explaining to people how brilliant New York is and how most of these misconceptions about New York are so wrong."
Jill Hennessy, New York Magazine

New York Walks

Riverside Park

"Toby loved taking walks. It was his greatest revelation of New York, that it was the largest city in America and you could scale it on your own two legs."
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

New York Grandeur

Grand Central Terminal

"Even a Philadelphian like me is willing to admit that New York is the greatest city world. It's vibrant. Alive. Timeless. The more I get to know it, the more I'm captivated by its grandeur."
Rob DiCristino, quoted in Filmed in Brooklyn

Diversity and Complexity

Two Bridges

"New York is full of diversity and complexity, and it's very hard to analyze because of that. New York is a mind-set, and we're all arrogantly proud of what that represents."
Milton Glaser, The New York Times

Mood Supporter

Dumbo

"Another incredible quality of Manhattan is that it really supports whatever mood you're in. If you're on top of the world, on a honeymoon phase with a new boyfriend, just found a nice man with a great job, looked in the mirror and think you look great, New York is suddenly the best city in the world. It's just like a Frank Sinatra song, and similarly, if you're down-and-out, life has lost all meaning and, just never comes together, New York really supports that. You can feel safe in the weight of that."
Natasha Lyonne, Coveteur

Always Running

Williamsburg Bridge

"New York is known as a place where you're always running toward something, whether it be at a meeting, the subway station, or a particular goal — in New York, you're always ready for the next thing."
Silvana Reyes, Buzzfeed

New York Imagery

Top of the Rock

"New York is always confirming its own imagery, in part because the imagery is mostly not the sort that is predicated on perfect light glinting off monuments. The Empire State Building and the figure of Prometheus above the Rockefeller Center skating rink endure in tourist-brochure shorthand, but they don't actually remind you of anything but themselves. New York is all pileup and fluke and babble; its imagery is ad hoc."
Lucy Sante, New York Magazine

New York's Feelings

East Village

"New York is a person. You might argue that cities are cities that therefore can't also be people any more than people can also be cities, and you may be right that other cities aren't people, but I think you're wrong about New York. I have lived in other cities; I have lived in Los Angeles, and Chicago, and Dallas, and they are all cities that are nice cities but cities that are not people. You may dispute this belief, but today I worried I'd hurt New York's feelings, and New York let me know we were okay, same as any close friend I'd had since I was a kid might have done."
Lauren Graham, Have I Told You This Already?

Tourist Destination

Manhattan Bridge

"New York is in fact a major tourist destination, drawing millions of visitors each year, the majority of whom are never robbed and stabbed and left on the sidewalk to bleed to death while being stepped over by enough people to populate the entire state of Montana. Their secret? They follow certain common-sense New York City safety rules, such as: Always walk at least 30 miles per hour. Always keep your money and other valuables in a safe place, such as Switzerland."
Dave Barry, Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need

Fun Time

Upper West Side

"Staying in New York City over Thanksgiving is a little like being a survivor of the zombie apocalypse: The city empties out, an eerie calm descends and only the most dedicated venture into the night. In other words, it's a really fun time to be here! (Seriously.)"
Tasting Table staff, Tasting Table

On the Move

Williamsburg

"New York City is a big-goal place, but it’s also a place where a lot of people work hard with what they do. Everybody is on the move, and everybody is trying to get to a certain place."
Xavier McKinney, New York Post

New York Launch

Art in Freeman Alley

"New York is like that, it takes delicious delight in launching young things out into the stratosphere only to shoot them back out of the sky. That’s its sport."
Ashley Bickerton, Los Angeles Magazine

New York Rhythm

SoHo

"New York is a better fit. There's a rhythm to the city that revs me up. I like the bustle and the sounds. The smells could be improved, but all in all, I'm glad I moved."
Jo Leigh, Tempted in the City

In the Traffic of Art

Sidewalk in Rose Hill

"What’s great about New York is that you’re in the traffic so to speak, of theater, art, music, politics and so much more that really isn’t available elsewhere. New York is also a very spontaneous place. You don’t have to plan something because you can simply go to the theater or a restaurant, or do almost anything else. I think anybody who’s bored in New York isn’t trying."
Marlo Thomas, New York Lifestyles Magazine

Lonely People

East River Greenway

"New York is a city of many lonely people. It's easier to fit in there if you're lonely than in other places."
Billy Whitener, Alone: The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry

City of Man

"Adam" at the Time Warner Center

"New York is truly the city of man. It is humanity in microcosm, reflecting the infinite variety as well as the infinite capacity for good or evil of the human race."
Diosdado Macapagal, The New York Times

Biggest Personality

Lower East Side

"I love New York City. No matter how long I have lived or worked here, she's just the biggest personality  I've ever met, so there's always an unexpected joy, or moment, a surprise. There's nothing like NYC."
Stephanie J. Block, NYC Next

Love Story

"Window to the Heart" in Times Square

"It’s no surprise that New York is such a popular a setting for romantic comedies — a genre that is, more often than not, about the newness of love. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy meets boy, girl meets girl . . . New York, with its endless crowded sidewalks, is practically designed for these happy collisions. Every morning you step out your front door into what is potentially Act One of a love story."
Carter Bays, The Financial Times

Bemoaning the Disappearance of New York

57 Great Jones Street

"Bemoaning the disappearance of the New York is a time-honored tradition: no one has ever arrived here early enough to experience the city at its greatest, and everyone who comes after you has arrived too late."
Glynnis MacNicol, The Daily Beast

Despair of Love

East Village

"To know New York is to know the agonizing despair that is loving it. Desperately, begrudgingly, faithfully. Few cities in the world instill such conflicted passion."
Jenny Bahn, Cereal City Guide: New York

Living in New York

Long Island City

"People don't really know what New York is unless you live there. I think a lot of people want New York to be a certain way, and they want New York to to be a way that fulfills whatever the image is in their head, and they get that image, probably from TV, from film, and from whatever else, or other sorts of media where they see the city. I think for me, it was just a place that I was growing up. Obviously, the thing that drives New York really is this kind of energy, I think that everyone always talks about, right. But that is kind of hard to understand." Matthew Daddario, Flaunt

Like What You See in Movies

Madison Square Park

"It is hard to say why I love New York because everything is like what you see in movies or on TV, so feels almost unreal. But I was there a couple of years ago walking to the Met from midtown – which is a very long walk – and it was as though I was being carried on a tide of difference: everybody and everything seemed new and fresh."
Chantal Joffe, The Guardian

What Happens on Coney Island

Coney Island Boardwalk

"You know what they say: 'What happens on Coney Island...' Well, I guess nothing good really happens on Coney Island."
"Logan Pierce" (Jimmy Simpson), Person of Interest

Vital and Fertile

Straus Park

"New York? Love it! I feel in cadence here. New York is so vital and so fertile."

Jackie Skarvellis, James Dean is Dead! (Long Live James Dean) 

Night Place

Rose Hill

"New York is a night place. New York is a haven for those supposedly lost souls who cannot put up after dusk with solitary silence,  who find cricket noises unsettling, and who want to buy a newspaper or enjoy a five-course dinner or even conduct a leisurely chat with a perfect stranger."
Bobby Short, New York Magazine

New York Landing

JFK airport

"She's always thought that one of the beauties of New York is that you can be from anywhere and within moments of landing it is yours."
Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

Monument to the $

Rockefeller Center

"New York is a monument to the $. The $ is responsible for everything, good and bad, and it is the best thing the city has to offer."
William Klein, quoted in The Guardian

Scary New York

Townhouse in Gramercy Park

"Living in New York is scary. Here I am living in this lovely townhouse, and when I walk outside I'm right in the middle of all the terrible things going on."
Neil Simon, Conversations with Neil Simon

What America Should Be

Midtown Manhattan

"New York is such a melting pot of so many worlds in one. That’s what America should be, to me. It should be a place that’s shared with whoever wants to explore and learn and grow."
Gigi Hadid, Variety

Civic Choreography

World Trade Center station

"To walk in New York is to enter a sprawling civic choreography with a cast of millions, and Ben falls effortlessly into its rhythms of haste, purpose, possibility. He knows the steps because he listens to the city call them out."
Tucker Shaw, When You Call My Name

Loving Life

Midtown Manhattan

"What I love most about New York: the range and diversity of human experience. For me, loving New York is loving life."
Ben Levy, New York Magazine

The Way to Survive New York

Penn Station

"The only way to survive New York is to leave it and miss it so much, you have to come back."
Sophie Auster, Grandlife.com

New York as a Character

SoHo

"New York is impossible not to see as a character. It is a place that demands you be in a relationship with it. It is a place I’ll never get tired of."
Naomi Krupitsky, Shondaland