Hustling

Allen Street

"I love New York, because here everyone is hustling all the time. Everyone has things they are constantly working towards."

Melissa Rakiro, Times Square Chronicles

One in a Million

Mural in Williamsburg

"New York is the place where if you really are one in a million, there's seven other people just like you right here in town!"
Alec Baldwin, Vulture

Talismanic Power

14th Street subway station

"Money talks and bullshit walks in New York. In a lot of cities, probably—but here, the nation’s shrine to unrestricted predatory capitalism, money has nearly talismanic power. Which means that he can use it as a talisman."
N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became

City of Cities

Fifth Avenue and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

"Against the blue of the sky are the gray silhouettes of buildings that pierce it (light gray in the sun, darker in shadow), lines, lines, lines. How can anyone say that New York is not beautiful? For me it is the city of cities, ready for the future."
Yelena Bonner, quoted in The City

Something Else

West Village

"The most New York thing about New York is that it's constantly changing. I've been here forever and I still don't recognize it. It's always changing, which is nothing to be nostalgic about. There are a lot of places that are no longer there but something else is there."
Laurie Anderson, Vice

New York Inspiration

Empire State Building

"I get inspired by one thing about New York, which is that it suggests everything is possible. I don’t get inspired by moonlight on the river, but I get inspired by the idea of what is living proof here: this incredible vitality and energy towards making things, producing things."

Milton Glaser, Document Journal

Multi-Color

Midtown Manhattan

"New York is incredibly multicultural, multiracial, multi-color, multi-language and everybody gets by. They don’t always love each other but they, on the whole, are pretty polite to each other. And sometimes they do love each other."

Roger Spottiswoode, Deadline

New York Romance

World Trade Center subway station

"New York has romanced me unlike anything else.  I'm so in love with New York."

Blake Lively, Vogue

Noisy, Dirty, Huge, Crowded

West 34th

"New York is noisy, dirty, huge, crowded, the very worst you hear about it is no doubt true... but there are other things to balance all this, I love a world capital, and this is indeed a center."
Katherine Anne Porter, Letters of Katherine Anne Porter

New York Show

Fifth Avenue

"I think New York is pretty amazing, in every sense. It has the best and the worst of any town in the world. The impulse that it has, the sensation, is unlike anyplace else. Everything on the street is a show. You have to pay attention, no? It's very exciting, but also exhausting."
Javier Bardem, Salon

New York Feeling

Chelsea

"I love New York, because, as in Paris, everybody that lives in it feels that it is his property,--at least, as much as it is anybody's."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Atlantic

Community of Souls

Williamsburg

"I love New York City because of the community. I love that we live underneath, on top of, and all around one another, and we take care of each other. I love that I can hear someone practicing an aria down the hall or that I can wave hello to the woman who owns the bodega on the corner. It's a community of souls who look out for one another and love one another."
Jenn Colella, NYC Next 

Hungry for Life

Greenwich Village

"New York was for people too hungry for life to be anywhere else."
Katherine Howe, The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

Harmonious Song

Washington Square Park

"New York is a city that houses the world; its five boroughs contain multitudes of people, cultures, and identities. Every neighborhood tells a unique story, hums a different tune. And yet, they all join together to sing a harmonious song."

Darren Walker, JR: The Chronicles of New York City

Question Mark

"New York is lovable, strange, and sometimes funny; it is not beautiful or important, yet. It is a thousand things, unfinished, misused, potential, wasted; and until we have great art, especially a great literary art, no one will be able to make much sense of it. It is a question mark, to which imagination keeps answering."
Glenway Wescott, A Visit to Priapus and Other Stories

In Search of Excitement

"I still love New York City, but that’s changed tremendously. I didn’t come to New York because it was clean, I came because it was exciting."
Chris Noth, The Guardian

Jumping Cat

"New York is like a cat. You never know which way it will jump."
Nancy Mann Waddel Woodrow, The Beauty

An Apple a Day

JFK Airport

"I think New York is very therapeutic. Hey, an apple a day is... uh... great for one's constitution!" 
James Picker, Sundae in New York

Sense of Anonymity

"There's still a sense of anonymity in New York. You could sit on a park bench and have a coffee, you know? For the most part people in New York are worried about their own shit."
Nicholas Braun, Mr. Porter

So Many Weirdos

"'You know what I like about New York?' he said. 'There are so many weird people that nobody takes any notice. We all just fit right in.'"
Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project

Collection of Villages

"New York is a collection of villages, my dear. We know the people who live in our own village."
Agnes Van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), The Gilded Age

Obstacle Course

"The city can often be a massive obstacle course in different ways — it can be this wonderful place where even just being there physically is an inspiration and provides a certain energy. When I first moved there in 2003 for graduate school, I didn’t like it all that much, but over time, I grew to love it. Just to be able to walk down the street and see the height and breadth of the city. Even when things aren’t going well, at least they aren’t going well in one of the greatest places."
Kristopher Jansma, Washington Independent Review of Books

Sense of Humor

"I adore New York. Instantly I get out of a plane, into a yellow taxi — I already feel funnier and smarter. The town itself has a sense of humor. Just walking down the street looking at the people, the stores, the life, the hustle, bustle, rustle, is funny. Anyone who lives in New York is lucky."
Clark Gregg, Page Six