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

Someone Running

Stephanie and Fred Shuman Running Track

"New York is like somebody running, dashing across the streets, always in a hurry."
Judith Michael, Inheritance 

Disconnected

Williamsburg

"Life in New York is a paradox. With a population density of over 27,000 people per square mile, closeness is a fact of life. Even from my apartment on the 16th floor I am constantly reminded of my 8.5 million neighbors through the blaring sirens and the constant cacophony of voices, horns and church bells below. However, in this state of constant proximity, I find myself, along with many of my fellow New Yorkers, going about our day to day doing everything we can to distance ourselves from those around us. Whether it be walking with headphones in, averting my gaze to oncoming passersby or contorting my body to stay within the beveled confines of my seat on the subway, I exist so close to so many people, and yet manage to be so utterly disconnected."
Reagan Jacobs, The Observer

Different Versions

The New York Times Building

"I think I knew I was a New Yorker when I could envision different versions of myself that I didn't really know yet. I also starting catching myself talking to no one in particular, out loud, on the street."
Stewart Uoo, Vice

Nostalgic City

Elizabeth Street Garden

"Every scratched subway seat, every dirty slice of pavement or dusty park bench tells a million stories. And your story, your history is everywhere. I see my younger self standing on street corners in Chinatown, cutting across Houston Street, running up the steps to old apartments, old neighborhoods, with old friends. It is a very nostalgic city, very haunted in some ways. But also a city of reincarnation and possibility and promise. That is why you stay, why you love it."
Phillip Lim, Cereal City Guide

Spectacle of Life

Dumbo

"Living in New York is absolutely fantastic. That thrilling spectacle of life is the closest to heaven I have ever experienced."
Alessandro Busà, The Creative Destruction of New York City

Anyway You Look at New York City

Number 1 subway train

"No matter how you look at New York City—vertically, horizontally, upside down, sideways—one thing remains clear. New York City is the Capital of the World."
Rudolph Giuliani, quoted in New York

Fight to Survive

Gramercy Park East

"New York is a jungle, in which one must fight to survive."
Angel Arekin, Is It Love? Carter Corp. Gabriel

Where History is Used

Castle Clinton

"I always say this: New York is a historic city. It has lived so intensely the 19th and 20th centuries, and it has preserved so much, that to walk here today is to walk through a museum of architecture, citizenship, immigration. But it's not a canonical museum, it's not a museum where what's historical is historical; here history is used, the way one uses old furniture or the way one uses the Brooklyn Bridge."
Elvira Lindo, Don de Gentes

Something to Prove

Carl Schurz Memorial

"People don’t move to New York for physical comfort. People don’t stay and live here because it’s easy. For decades people have come, for the very reason that it is hard, because they’ve got something to prove, to themselves or to the world."
Daily News Editorial Board, NY Daily News

Cruise Ship

Ship on the South Street Seaport

"New York was the biggest marketing hub in the world. The city was bursting with energy and opportunity. And not just professional ones. Whenever we visited, it felt like a giant cruise ship where I could be a parent upstairs but also disappear downstairs to a life that was entirely my own." Jenny Mollen, City of Likes

Lucky to Be Raised in New York City

Lower East Side

"I love the yellow taxis, I love the architecture… It’s a place that, even today, when I walk out the door, I don’t know what will happen. I’m not in a car; I'm not behind a gate. I’m forced to be on the streets and bump into people and connect with humanity. I think my children are enormously lucky to be raised in New York City."
Sarah Jessica Parker, Town & Country Magazine

The Chance to Be Anyone We Want

Bowery

"New York is preparing for tomorrow, when we'll all wake up and that great process of living will begin anew. Here, we have the chance to be anyone we want—a mayoral staffer, a private investigator, a Warhol superstar."
David Goodwillie, Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Coy Killer

Morningside Heights

"I realized New York was out to get me. The city isn't evil; it's simply in its nature to destroy. It can't help itself. Kind of like the god of the Old Testament. Except New York is craftier, enjoys the chase. It will sneak up behind you, giggling, and stuff dynamite in your backpack. And if you happen to spin around too soon, it will hide its weapon, look the other way, and whistle. It's a coy killer, a lethal coquette—when caught in the act, New York bites its lip and twirls its hair, and all you can say is, 'Oh, New York, you're so bad!'"
Jane Borden, I Totally Meant to Do That

New York Stories

14th Street subway station

"The thing that always attracted me to New York was the sense of being in a place where a lot of people had a lot of stories not unlike mine. Everybody comes from somewhere else. Everyone's got a Polish grandmother, some kind of metamorphosis in their family circumstances. That's a very big thing - the experience of not living where you started. It changes you in all kinds of ways."
Salman Rushdie, The Guardian

True Capital of America

Times Square

"At the risk of indulging in superlatives about a place that naturally lends itself to such things, New York is the true capital of America. Like America, it was born in conflict and commerce and lives in a mix of prose and poetry."
Chris Barsanti, The Handy New York City Answer Book

Kind of Europe

The French Building

"I find New York most agreeable in some ways to my temperament: the sense of everybody being displaced, everybody being a little neurotic, communicative, garrulous. New York is a kind of Europe."
Anthony Burgess, Conversations with Anthony Burgess