Ghost Town

#6 subway train

"New York is very much not dead, but it is indeed a ghost town. The city is steeped in history, and if you’ve lived here long enough, it’s probably rare you walk a few blocks and don’t reflect on which banks used to be cool bars and which buildings you used to visit your ex at and which corner—well, you get it. It’s a city of infinite possibility and stacked memories, a place where, at any time, you can be struck with a powerful reminiscence and equally as likely run into someone completely random and out of context."
Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner, Time Out New York

Talk of the Town

News vans in Turtle Bay

"New York City. Who doesn't want to become the talk of the town here? I mean, make a name for yourself in this city and it can feel like the most sparkling place on Earth, full of fireworks and excitement."
Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin), Only Murders in the Building

There's Something About New York

Pete's Tavern

"I tell you, New York is comfortable—comfortable. There's something about it—the sights and the crowds, and the way it changes every day, and the very air of it that seems to tie a one-mile-long stake rope around a man's neck, with the other end fastened somewhere about Thirty-fourth Street. I don't know what it is."
O. Henry, The New York Stories of O. Henry

Distinctive Quality of New York

Split-Rocker, by Jeff Koons, at Rockefeller Center

"When I think about what's really the definitive aspect of New York, is that it's a place that really rallies a generation to come together. The youth sits down and discusses their ideas, and after a lot of talking they realize what they would like to do in the world and they take action and start to define their vision. And at that moment there's a new generation coming in right underneath them going through the same process of becoming and defining their ideas and what's important to them. This is the distinctive quality of New York for me."
Jeff Koons, Vice 

Red City

Third Avenue

"New York is a red city—the color of blood and life. Everything in it arouses both enthusiasm and disgust; it reflects God and the Devil."
Le Corbusier, quoted in The New Yorker Book of the 40s

Only New Yorkers

110th Street subway station

"The New York City subway is confusing; the map looks like a diagram of the human central nervous system. Only New Yorkers know how to get around without getting lost."
JJ Bola, The Selfless Act of Breathing

Ground Level

Sixth Avenue

"If New York was just tall buildings and canyons of glass it would be a boring place – however great the architecture. It's always been what happens at ground level that made the Apple so big."
Jonathan Jones, The Guardian

Branding

Long Island City

"New York is probably the world's greatest branded city. The brand key is integration and direction. That is driven by a combination of single-minded leadership about what New York is: an eclectic mixture of people, all of whom, regardless of sex, age or creed, have the potential to realise their dream - if they work at it."
Jonathan Gabay, Biz Community

Ne Plus Ultra

Riverside Park

"Summer in New York is the ne plus ultra. It's dreadfully hot, so steamy you can practically see the lines of heat shimmering off the sidewalk in waves."

Micol Ostow, The Day Before

New Yorker by Nature

125th Street subway station

"I would absolutely identify as a New Yorker by nature. I grew up in Detroit. There was not a bone in my body that even considered staying in Detroit for the rest of my life. As for New York: I love public transportation, I love street performers, I love the melting-pot aspect of the city."
Kristen Bell, Interview Magazine

Battle of the Busiest

Times Square Recruiting Station

"The thing about New York is it's kind of like the battle of the busiest. It's like, 'Oh, you're so busy. No, I'm so busy.' It's kind of a competition."
"Pauline," quoted in Digital Nomads

Everybody is Welcome

"This is New York City. Everybody is welcome."
Jamie Reagan (Will Estes), Blue Bloods

Movers and Shakers

Al Roker wax figure at Madame Tussauds

"When I was in college up in Syracuse, I could only imagine that I'd live in Manhattan someday. The act of moving from the outer boroughs to the island of Manhattan was for movers and shakers, the ambitious—those who finally got a piece of the pie à la George Jefferson."
Al Roker, You Look so Much Better in Person

Arbiter

Tiffany Window

"New York is the arbiter. What New York accepts is accepted. What New York dislikes is disliked. If New York has put its seal of approval on a book, or a play, or a painting, that book, that play, that painting  is accepted. If New York has put its approval upon a musician, or an actor, or a preacher, he is accepted by the rest of the continent."
Konrad Becovici, Around the World in New York

Racket

Columbus Circle

"New York is a racket of sirens, cars, horns and people. It's a lot of fun, it's edgy and exciting, and now it's home."
Fiona Graham, The Chancer 

Better Life

Ellis Island

"The American Dream isn't a vision of white utopia where everyone has a yard and 'freedom' and barbecues on the weekends. The American Dream is people streaming in from all over the world for hundreds of years onto this one tiny island because they wanted to make a better life for themselves and their kids and their families back home."
Andrea Skowronek, Gothamist

Imagining What's Possible

Strawberry Fields

"I love that New York is always changing. I kind of love that you don't know what to expect around a familiar corner. That kind of energy I think, you know, keeps you on your toes, keeps you imagining or thinking about what will be and what's possible."
Christy Turlington, Vanity Fair

Inspiring Place

Literary Walk

"New York is definitely an inspiring place. I remember moving over there still to this day, and it’s a melting pot of everything and anything, and there’s so much life. I’m sure for any tourist that has been there they know that just walking around in a day. You’re just exhausted, there’s so much to take in, so much going on and when you live in New York, that’s just a normal thing, and I think along with that it’s just a melting bowl of culture and the American way of 'anything is possible,' and we all are individuals and you’re different and independent and your way of thinking – that whole independent and be-yourself type of attitude is very alive, and I think it’s a very inspiring city. It reminds you that anything is possible.
David Boyd, People Magazine

Concerned with Finance

JP Morgan Chase headquarters

"New York is more concerned with finance than anything else. It doesn’t create culture, only consumes it; most of what you find in New York comes from elsewhere."
Werner Hergoz, LAist

Exciting City

Tom's Restaurant

"New York is such an exciting city that even being on a model of it 3,000 miles away is exciting. I work with all ex-New Yorkers. That's how we survive. We have a little New York aquarium that we live in."
Jerry Seinfeld, New York Magazine

Infinite Resources

Morgan Library & Museum

"Like it or not, New York is the perfect city. It is perfect by construction, as one says in geometry. New York is what people do when they are given infinite resources, infinite space, and infinite money."
Jacques Vallee, Forbidden Science

Photogenic

Long Island City

"One thing about New York is that it’s very photogenic, but I always feel that it works better on the scale of the skyline, rather than walking among those tall giants, which have no human-scale reference."
Umberto Bellardi Ricci, Studio Fenice

Great World

Columbus Circle Globe

"New York is a world in itself — a great world, at that and daily growing greater."
Robert Hatton, Life of General Robert Hatton