Do More

Coney Island subway station

"New York – I can go to every five boroughs and New Jersey in one day and still have time to go do some other shit. You can just do more. It’s just faster to me. I like New York because it’s so fast."
Tyshawn Jones, Sneaker News

Resilience

The Sphere at Liberty Park

"I’ve had a 34-year love affair with New York City and have witnessed its resilience for decades. I can tell you firsthand that New York does what it does, what it has always done, what it will always do: It gets on with it. So many times people have said, 'New York is over,' including after the terrorist attacks and when COVID hit the city. New York will never be over."
Kelly Ripa, AARP

New York Seasons

Riverside Park

"New York isn't much better: Spring and fall last a month each and make you certain there's no better city on earth, then summer and winter are brutal and exhausting. Precisely when you decide it's time to leave once and for all, spring or fall shows up and you forget the pain all over again."
Abbi Waxman, Adult Assembly Required

Manhattan Living

Park Avenue

"The excitement of living in Manhattan never left me, and never has. It was an incomparable feeling to step out of our apartment block onto Park Avenue in the morning, and know that you were in the centre of the world."
John Mason, Diplomatic Dispatches

New York Women

Rose Hill

"The beauty of woman is as usual in New York as it is rare in the capitals of Europe. Without the charm, symmetry, vivacity of the faces of her women, New York would be, indeed, the ugliest, dingiest, and stupidest metropolis in the world."

Robert W. Chambers, Eres

Reasons to Love New York

East Village

"I love New York for a lot of reasons. I love New York for fashion, I love seeing people walking down the street in the most intricate, beautiful outfits. I love meeting people everywhere, I love seeing people everywhere. The energy's palpable, it's something unlike anything else. The best about New York is the inspiration that it grants me. I don't think I've ever been more creative anywhere else than I have been here."
Zión Moreno, V Magazine

One New York

Top of the Rock

"Everyone has a black belt in bitching about New York. The subway, for example, is the quickest way to get around so you just have to use it, and some people don’t like that. But, there’s only one New York. It’s an amazing city."
Philip Duff, Irish Times

Fantastic with Money

Billionaires' Row

"New York is really fantastic as long as you have the money. If you don't, you can bet on a restless existence made of constant moving, constant threats, and a continuous process of starting all over again."

Alessandro Busà, The Creative Destruction of New York City

Hiding in Plain Sight

World Trade Center subway station

"There's still a healthy amount of anonymity to be had in Manhattan. And, I don't even mean that just because I'm an actress...in terms of my childhood, there's that feeling of being alone in the world in the  world in the big city but there are also so many people. Like they say, the best hiding places are always in plain sight."

Natasha Lyonne, Coveteur

Balancing Act

American Copper Buildings

"Living in New York is a tricky balancing act. Daily, I must leave the cage of my apartment and venture out into the city. Then I must get in, out of the city, back to my apartment nest. The cage/nest contradiction is a constant one. It goes with the urban terrain. The enchantment of New York is its big dreams. The reality of New York is its small living spaces."
Julia Cameron, The Sound of Paper

Flying Permits

Alwyn Court

"In New York there are unions for virtually everything. Even the pigeons are required to have permits to fly around New York City. And those permits are expensive, which is why you see so many pigeons walking around Manhattan sidewalks."

John Bohannon, Abracadabra, You're Dead

Raging Beast

Mural by Sonny in SoHo

"To me, New York is still a strange, raging beast to be tamed, except that I don't happen to have a tranquilizer gun."
Angel Arekin, Is it Love? Carter Corp. Gabriel

Make Your Own Path

Dumbo

"I think New York is the true test of independence and finding yourself. To survive in New York you need to have thick skin, and you need to learn to advocate for yourself. The city has taught me to be a unique individual—it really brings it out of you. It encourages people to make their own path. No two people have the same story in this city, you really need to make your own."
Hilda Batayneh, Fashion Week Daily

In Search of Opportunity

East 34th Street Ferry Terminal

"There are so many people who go to New York in search of success or an opportunity that sometimes I feel like it's a passing-through destination. There's a sense of urgency in which everybody is in a hurry."
María Mariño, El Destape

New York Will Continue

Battery Park

"I have news for you. New York most certainly will continue. With you. Or without you. Just like she always has. Just like she always will. Perhaps that's what stings most about New York sometimes. Her aloof independence. Her ability to be anything and everything to you."
Krystal Bick, This Time Tomorrow

Incomparable Energy

West 34th Street

"I’ve loved NYC from the moment I landed here in the early nineties. The moment you see that skyline, well for me it was all over. I feel like I owe this city a lot, because it gives me so much every day. Even if I’m running in Central Park or walking the streets, this city has an energy unlike any other place."
Barry Reeves, Echo

Case Study of Authenticity

Madison Square Park

"The colorful characters that strut down the city's streets, they inspire and challenge every notion of what identity is. NYC is a live case study of authenticity and what it means to truly be free to express yourself and by being free, I mean in every sense of the word."
Richie Shazam, Vice 

New York Neighbors

Long Island City

"The beauty of New York neighbors is that they can be acquired slowly, carefully, and selectively."
John Lardner, quoted in The Epic of New York City

Heart in New York

Lower East Side

"A heart in New York, a rose on the street
I write my song to that city heartbeat
A heart in New York, love in her eye, an open door and a friend for the night."
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, A Heart in New York

Working for Something

Financial District

"One thing that New York really showed us in the late eighties is you have to have a mission when you're there. You have to be working for something. It's very hard to live in New York and just kick it, sort of relax, and do nothing."
John Popper, Suck and Blow

Everyplace Else

Store in Midtown

"It's not that I love New York. It's just that I hate everyplace else." 
P.C. Vey, The New Yorker

New York Is My Pulse

Bleecker Street

"Everything that I'm attracted to and have ever wanted to be like is in New York. New York is my pulse. New York is my heart."
Debbie Harry, Face It

Cultures and Culture

Lincoln Center

"It's the greatest city in the world, with the greatest assortment of cultures and culture, and a great variety of experiences that allows each person to have a different set of memories and sentiments. New York offers great opportunities at a great cost. You have to sacrifice a lot to make it there."
Sari Botton, The Atlantic 

Recreating New York

NoHo

"People are always nostalgic about the New York they've read about. They are always trying to recreate those feelings, that mystique. It always ends up cheap, garish, and the worst crime of all, inauthentic."
Marlowe Granados, Happy Hour

World Metaphor

Little Italy

"What I like about New York is that it’s kind of a metaphor of the rest of the world–there’s a neighborhood for every country of the world."
Cedric Klapisch, Coming Soon

New York Woman

Gramercy Park

"Even at thirteen, Sally was a New York Woman. She knew how to wear black."
Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Latecomer

The Beauty of New York

Statue of Liberty

"Maybe New York is the only place where no one cares where you come from. You just have to deliver. And that’s the beauty of New York."
Alexei Ratmansky, Gothamist

Character in Its Own Right

Broome Street

"I think almost more than any other city, New York City operates as a character in its own right. And that’s true if you live there. There are days when New York is your best friend, you’re granted these little moments of grace. There are moments where it seems like the city itself is out to personally ruin your life. You have to interact with it like a person."
Naomi Krupitsky, Feminist Book Club

Stacked

Upper West Side

"The whole idea of New York is that everyone is stacked in these boxes on top of each other having to interact and live together. You take the same elevator and walk in through the same lobby — it’s unavoidable and horrible and wonderful all at the same time."
Curt Beech, Indie Wire

Truest Selves

Midtown Manhattan

"I came to New York because I needed the city, and New York is for people who need cities, for those who cannot function outside of one. Open and permissive, insulating you with the sort of anonymity you can't find in a small town or suburb, the city allows us to expand, experiment, and become our truest selves."
Jeremiah Moss, Vanishing New York

One True Love

Hotel on Rivington

"Like any romantically involved couple, New York City and I have a few things to work on. At the height of the summer — with the crazy heat and terrible smells — I take every chance to escape for a weekend. But when my plane lands on the return flight, my stomach does flips when I see the skyline. I am home, reunited with my one true love."
Marshall Bright, Refinery29

Cabs Everywhere

                                                          Eighth Avenue

"That is one of the things I love about New York. If you wish to get away from an unpleasant situation immediately, there are cabs everywhere, ready to make you feel, at least for five minutes, that you are having the last word,  by way of the very satisfying sound of a slammed car door."
Carlene Bauer, Frances and Bernard

Like God

Archangel Gabriel statue at St. John the Divine

"New York didn't set out to charm you. It was like God that way. You had to bring a lot of the enthusiasm yourself. He liked the idea of that. Of being somewhere that would not pander to him, but which would not single him out for any special cruelty either. "
Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

Become Anything and Anyone

Times Square subway station

"New York City is the only city in the world where you can come from anything and be anyone and become anything and become anyone. One of the things I'm most proud of in my entire life is that I became a New Yorker."
Annaleigh Ashford, NYC Next

Nora Ephron Movie

Flatiron Plaza

"Mom came to New York hoping for the set of a Nora Ephron movie (my namesake), but the real New York is so much better. Because every kind of person is there, coexisting, sharing space and life."
Emily Henry, Book Lovers

New York Dream

East Village

"That kind of toughness that New York has, people who live here have that toughness, too. Where it’s, like, I’m going to make it no matter what. I know to the outside it looks as if I’m struggling or that this is a fool’s errand, but to me, I know this is all going to happen. It’s this unbreakable spirit that New York has. We’re all in this struggle together, and one day, I’m going to have an apartment with a washer-dryer in the apartment. That was my dream for so long, and I made it happen. I was like, I’ve made it!"
Phoebe Robinson, The Washington Post

Funny City

"What a funny city New York was – eight million people, and no one knew anybody and didn't really want to."
Patricia Highsmith, A Dog's Ransom

Little Brother

Jane's Carousel and Manhattan Bridge

"Brooklyn's like the little, the fighty little brother to Manhattan, or like the Australia to America. I's like on the outside looking in, but you get the better view."

Sarah Snook, Late Night with Seth Meyers

Extraordinary City

The Churchill Tavern

"New York is indeed an extraordinary city full of original people, with original ideas. And if I may say so I've been so hugely impressed by the sheer scale of generosity and philanthropy you find in this city."
Prince Charles, speech at MoMA

Leaving New York

George Washington Bridge and Jeffrey's Hook Light 

"The more I travel, the calmer I feel when I return to New York. This city has a way of getting under your skin sometimes. Things can get hyperbolic and it seems as if everyone is floating on supercompressed hot air, which can be stifling. And when you feel like this place is too much, and you are ready to leave, you go on a trip somewhere—anywhere—and soon you cannot wait to get back. What's the phrase? 'Nothing makes you love New York more than when you leave it'?"
Toyin Ojih Odutola, Vice 

Death by Money

Kenmare Street

"I feel like the people are boring. I don’t feel like the city is boring. Obviously all this money came in, and you stopped seeing little stores. Every corner is a bank or a drug store. It's insane! So that kills Manhattan right there. Manhattan's dead."
Colin Quinn, Gothamist

Inspiration

Fifth Avenue

"New York is such an inspiration for me. It's the city of dreams, dynamism, and energy."
Olivier Rousteing, Fashion Network

New York is an Apparition

Gantry Plaza State Park

"New York is not a city. It is an apparition, a phantom, a vision – a frontier outpost of a territory yet to be conquered, possessed, named. Americans will have conquered and colonized another planet sooner than claim New York as the capital of their empire."
Hamid Dabashi, Can Non-Europeans Think?

Say Hello to New York City

Lower East Side

"Stroll the midtown streets
And tell me that you don't feel giddy
Lady Liberty ain't throwing us a wink or is she
Travel light and see the world right
You never know you never go so
Run away with me
And say hello to New York City 
Say hello to New York City."
Adam Young, New York City

Disneyland for Grown-Ups

Chelsea

"New York is a playground, Gina tells me. Disneyland for grown-ups. I should move to New York."
Aryn Kyle, Boys and Girls Like You and Me

On Time in New York

Met Life Tower

"Don't you know that, in New York, 'on time' means fifteen minutes late? It's some kind of rule, I think."
Tucker Shaw, Oh Yeah, Audrey!

All Walks of Life

Bryant Park subway station

"New York subway carriages are microcosms of American society, rattling stages that play host to a diverse cast of the city’s characters, 24 hours a day. The phrase 'from all walks of life' must have been born here. If there’s one thing to be said about New York City, it’s that it embraces everything in full swing. Work. Play. Grit. Life."
Philippa Whishaw, Urban Adventures

Small Town

Bethesda Terrace

"New York is just a small town with a lot of people in it."
Kate Spencer, In a New York Minute

Everyone is Like a Dog

Rose Hill

"New York is a tough city. Growing up, you battle in the parks, you battle on the court wherever you are. You want to show that you're the best. People are going to talk trash, you're going to face people who just want to compete to win. And I think that's something that carries over and it’s something about New York that’s just like no other city. Everyone's like a dog there, so you're either going to stand up or you're just going to get put down." 
R.J. Davis, 247 Sports

New York is Back

Top of the Rock

"New York's coming back.
All the tourists have returned doing what they do
walking slowly down the sidewalk right in front of you.

Even though some of the seats are wet
the subway is still packed.
And I know New York City's coming back.
New York's back, you can't keep us down.
You can travel the world,
but there's no place like this town."
Jimmy Fallon, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon