Degree of Difficulty

Morningside Park

"To me, at least, living in New York is beginning to call to mind those 'degree of difficulty' cards that the judges hold up in Olympic diving competitions. Every year, the degree of difficulty seems to keep going up."
Ellen Futter, New York Magazine

New York Has Everything

Solomom R. Guggenheim Museum

"This city has everything. The public schools are amazingly good, the art, the nightlife. Even though I travel a lot, when I see the New York skyline as my plane lands, I’m always happy to come home."
Philip Duff, Irish Times

New Yorker Identity

Saks Fifth Avenue

"The New Yorker identity is as complicated as the city itself: on the one hand, there's arguably no other place in the United States that so embodies the American melting pot; on the other, New York is so deeply unlike any other place in America that the former seems like a total contradiction."
Erin Meister, New York City Coffee

Harsh Mirror

Building in Midtown Manhattan

"New York is a harsh mirror. As soon as I get off the train, my hair frizzes, my thighs dimple, my skin pimples, and my skirt grows six inches longer. I am always a fashion decade behind in New York City. In the Big Apple, I am an overripe Seckel pear."
Nancy Slonim Aronie, Memoir as Medicine

Constantly Moving

Times Square

"I think just the energy of the city and the hustle is really what gets me going. And it's why I love New York so much. Just everything's constantly moving. You can do a million things in a day."
Blu DeTiger, V Magazine

Trend Setter

Window on the Upper West Side

"New York is an onion with endless, overlapping layers. I could study it for the rest of my life and only scratch the surface of what there is to know. It is vast and deep and endless—its importance to our country and to the world can hardly be overstated. It is, and has been for centuries now, the city at the center of the world—a trend setter in art and music, theater, finance, capitalism, fashion, and, dare I say, the future."
Carol Lawrence, Crime Reads

Eyes All Over the Place

Chinatown

"Here is a thing I don't get. People who worry about living in a big city because of all the crime. As any true crime aficionado will tell you, it's the boondocks you need to worry about. I mean, let's face it, nobody ever discovered 19 bodies buried in the backyard of a 14-story apartment building. There's eyes on you all over the place here. And New Yorkers have a special way of communicating. And by special, I mean direct. We're packed in tight and stacked on top of each other."
Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Only Murders in the Building

Heart of New York

Times Square subway station

"I love that you're able to get wherever you want to go in such a convenient and rather quick way. But more than anything, I just love the juxtaposition of this really dark underworld. It's like the underbelly of New York, but there's so much art, it's so vibrant. There's always music playing, there's always performers, stories to be told, people to meet. The subway is the heart of New York and that's why I love it so much. I've always loved the underdog and I feel like it's the underdog of the city."
Zión Moreno, V Magazine

Keeping One Grounded

Movie trucks in the Lower East Side

"The best thing about New Yorkers is that they keep you grounded.There’s always some indignant New Yorker walking by right when they’re ready to call action saying, 'Excuse me, this is my apartment building. I don’t care what you’re shooting here.'"
Matt Bomer, Arkansas Democrat Gazette

City in a Hurry

Third Avenue

"If New York has a unifying characteristic, it is a spirit of urgency. It is a city in a hurry."
Paul Crowell, The City

Sea Gulls Know About New York

Moynihan Train Hall steps

"Never think, Edwin, that New York is a wilderness without connection; this is only the provincial view; even the sea gulls know better, and have their patrons, and their lanes."
Hortense Calisher, The New Yorkers

Never Boring

SoHo

"New York is so mutable and so surprising. Even if you don't love it, it is always compelling, always interesting, and never boring."
Milton Glaser, Chicago Tribune

Starting Over

Washington Square Park

"I'm a man starting over. What better place than New York, right?"
David Siegel (Warren Kole), White Collar

Born and Reborn

Central Park

"New York is a matrix of everything: born, reborn, be able, dream... Everything is possible in New York." Sylvia Jorif, Condé Nast

Everything is Amplified

Trash cans in downtown Manhattan

"Everything in New York is amplified: the traffic, the wealth, even the garbage smells. In New York, I am both exactly the person I am supposed to be and a person I don’t recognize. New York is my favourite place in the entire world."
Isabel Slone, Toronto Star

New Yorker in Los Angeles

Hollywood Diner

"I'm a New Yorker. I can go to LA and half-ass everything and I'd still be way better than everyone else."
Anonymous, quoted in Overheard in New York

New World

East Coast Memorial and Statue of Liberty

"The Statue of Liberty, rising from her island and lifting her torch, left Alma breathless with wonder. Yet even this was eclipsed by the Manhattan skyline. Countless buildings reached higher than the tallest cathedral spires of Old Europe. The New World glimmered like a miracle."
Mary Sharratt, Ecstacy

New York is Like a Woman

"Eve" at the Time Warner Center

"New York is like a woman: woman is the most difficult creature in existance. New York is strange, and big and beautiful all the same."
Yone Noguchi, Yone Noguchi: The Stream of Fate

Incognito

Wax figures of the Prince and Princess of Wales at Madame Tussauds

"Prince William told me he had never been to New York before which, I must say, surprised me greatly.  I was even more surprised that the Duchess hasn’t been. I urged them to come back again incognito. New York is the type of city that turns a blind eye and would allow you to do that."
Patrick Stewart, quoted in The Guardian

New York Welcome

Poster in downtown Manhattan

"The city is constantly changing and growing up and growing old. In New York, by default, your thing is going to be 'Oh it used to be this...' and people older than you are like 'Welcome to the rest of your 'it used to be' life.'"
Ben Solomon, 032c

Sign of a New Yorker

Morningside Heights

"I'd say I'm a New Yorker now—I know that because I've never used my stove."
Jahleel Weaver, Vice 

New York Houses Everyone

Long Island City

"New York houses everyone from all parts of the world and therefore belongs to everyone and no one. Right now I feel like I belong to it. And that makes me feel like the luckiest person of all."
Susie Moore, The Courier-Mail

Real American Dream

Park Avenue

"I love New York and I live in New York because, for the most part, this is not just a city where people randomly end up. This is a city where many people have chosen to live. We choose to live amongst each other even though we are all so different. We choose the dirt and the grime and the expense and the inconvenience because we know that New York is the real American Dream."
Andrea Skowronek, Gothamist