My Everything

Alicia Keys wax figure at Madame Tussauds New York

"New York is my heartbeat. New York means everything to me. It’s my identity. It’s what I recognize the most. It’s my most familiar, comfortable place. It’s my exploration. It’s the sound that I’ve picked up and put inside my music. It’s my character, my attitude, my energy, my tomboy-ness, my toughness, my survival, my instinct."
Alicia Keys, The Edition Broadsheet

Generous Place

Morningside Heights

"New York is an incredibly generous place. I’m inherently an optimist. The sidewalks are generous, the light is generous, the people are generous. This is why you can get things done here." Gus Powell, New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time

Alive Twenty Hours a Day

Zuccotti Park

"It is a true city where living, working, eating, shopping all take place on the same block. In other cities the commercial areas are dead after working hours. Not so New York. It lives twenty four hours a day."
Rhys Bowen, Jungle Red Writers

New York is a Movie

Number 1 subway train

"New York is a movie in itself. It’s enough to sit on the subway on the way to school to see that everyone around is a fully developed fictional character. Inspiration is everywhere, and what’s most fascinating is in every little detail."

Mina Sundwall, Grumpy Magazine

Never Quiet or Peaceful

Piano in Washington Square Park

"'Manhattan is never really quiet or peaceful, Oscar,' Miss Withers told him. 'Sometimes it is hushed—but only with the hush that comes just before the crescendo movement of a Wagnerian opera.'"
Stuart Palmer, The Riddles of Hildegarde Withers

Antidote to Elsewhere

Times Square

"New York is not usually a place for pretending you are elsewhere. It is the antidote to elsewhere."

Editorial, The New York Times

Ladder

Morningside Heights

"New York is a ladder that always leads us to greater opportunity."
Christine Quinn, State of the City Address

New York Preference

"Red Cube" by Isamu Noguchi

"I'd rather feel empty in New York than feel fulfilled anywhere else."
Anonymous, via Overheard in New York

Wonderful Anarchy

East Village

"One thing I like about New York is that it's ugly. There's a wonderful anarchy. New York has all the ugliness and terror of the 20th century. But if you look closely, all the beauty and sublimity is there, too. All the contradictions. Everything that's nice about this century and everything that's awful is here."
Charles Simic, The New York Times

New York is a Village

Greenwich Village

"It just underlines my theory that New York is a village,' he says. 'Sooner or later, you meet everyone.'"
Gemma Burgess, Brooklyn Girls

A Calling

Empire State Building

"It's kind of a calling, right? New York."
Tess (Ella Purnell), Sweetbitter

New York Mystery

Dumbo

"New York is sort of a mystery to me and that’s why I like it. It’s constantly changing and you don’t know what’s behind doors but you’re kind of allowed to go and explore. It’s the best."
Piper Perabo, Grazia 

Blue and Red

Park Avenue

"Manhattan was stretched out before her like a handful of jewels. Blue. The city that never wanted you to leave. Red. So it offered you everything, anything."
Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Will You Be Mine?

Bow Bridge

"Oh New York City, we have been through a lot in our long relationship. Remember when I said I would never date you because you didn’t ever bathe? But then I grew to see that dirty equals gritty, and that’s sexy, baby. So I gave you a chance, and you charmed me with your epic personality, your immensely diverse talents, your delicious delicacies, your infectious and adventurous energy, your muscular brawn mixed with your gentle humanity, and your insane ability to scrape the sky. And now we’ve been married for more than 30 years. Still, as I do every year, I must ask you, my dear New York City... will you be mine?"
Carrie Preston, New York Daily News

Snowbound

Lower East Side

"New York. This city is snowbound and every time you look round, someone has skidded on to their back in the street. New York is cold in a way London never is: here your face freezes, here the fluid in your eyes seems to ice over."
Hanif Kureishi, Collected Essays

Battle for a Box

"Finding an apartment in New York City is about as much fun as dental surgery without Novocain. And who am I to judge? First there's the matter of traipsing all over the city to actually look at the apartments. Then once you've weeded out the ones that resemble jail cells or have walls so thin it sounds like you're living in a night club, there's the matter of being first in line to get it. In Manhattan one must wage battle with others for an overpriced box."
Al Roker, You Look So Much Better in Person

Magical Chaos

Madison Avennue

"The best way I can describe NYC would be magical chaos. It’s vibrant, loud, and always inviting you to explore more with every crossing you rush across, and every cosy little street you turn down."

Alice Catherine, AliceCatherine.com

What New York Teaches You

Teachers College

"Things always change. And New York teaches you that. It's healthy to know that and to learn not to be sentimental or nostalgic because you can't stop it."
Richard Hell, quoted in EV Grieve

Why New York is So Great

Chinatown

"I learned so much from this city. In this city you never feel you are a foreigner, New York is great only because New York is mixed; there’s people from everywhere, and they are so passionate."
Ai Weiwei, Artsy

New York City, Baby

Chrysler Building

"Why would you wanna go somewhere else? Everything we want is here. This New York City, baby!"
Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora), Power

What Ever Happened to Fun

CBGB mosaic in Astor Place

"Every generation believes the real New York ended when their version gives way to what's next. There should be an oral history of New York called 'What Ever Happened to Fun,' in which a member of every living generation pinpoints the exact moment New York ended and why their party was the best."
Glynnis MacNicol, Elle Magazine

Everything Comes to You

"What I am most looking forward to about New York is that you don’t have to do anything. Everything comes to you. I’m a people-watcher. It’s my favorite thing. New York is the capital of people-watching."
Rachel Weisz, New York Magazine

How to Make It in New York

Williamsburg

"You know how it is, being our age in New York? I mean, you have to hustle if you wanna make it here."
"Kimber Min" (Ashley Park), Only Murders in the Building

New York Skies

Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge

"Skies in New York are in some ways like New Yorkers; they are either overcast or crystal clear and not a lot in between."
R.H. Martin, Children of Abraham

Unbelievable City

Downtown Manhattan

"New York is an unbelievable city, it really is. You can find everything here, anytime, all the time. Except a cab."
Chloe Wilkox, Rocked by a Vampire

Nicest People

East Village

"I am now a New Yorker through and through. New York is so diverse and so welcoming. I don’t know why New Yorkers have a reputation for being impolite. They are the nicest people. You know, you fall down on the street and these are the people that are going to help you up."

Geneva Carr, TV Fanatic

For the Young

College Walk at Columbia University

"New York is for the young. It's for people who are still fighting. It's a beehive, with no place for a retired old drone like me."
Stuart Palmer, Nipped in the Bud

City of the Future

The Future condominium in Kips Bay

"Here there are a lot of different people, cultures, histories and identities. New York is really the city of the future. Diversity is visible. Nobody in New York tries to quantify the different minorities."
Gaetano Pesce, Office Magazine

Discovering New York

Greywacke Arch

"After 4 years of living here, I feel like I’m still always discovering new places in New York and that’s the best part."
Ed Ngai, Noho Furniture

World Metaphor

East Village (art by Bunny M)

"New York is the metaphor for the world. It is the most beautiful and the most fetid city alive."
Giovanni Uminici, Giovanni Uminici: My New York

Extraordinary Life

JP Morgan Chase headquarters

"I grew up here, you know, I love the city. If you look at New York City, the brainpower, the talent across financial services, media, technology is extraordinary. The life is extraordinary."
Jamie Dimon, NY1

Looking Up

Empire State Building

"New York is so overpowering, so overwhelming. You strain your neck looking up."
Reid Scott, Faces

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Feeling New York

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Dumbo

"New York is a city to walk in. You cannot feel it without walking."
Sophia Loren, LIFE Magazine

Made for Grander Things

Grand Central Terminal

"New York is my destination.
New York is where I will be from.
New York is made for grander things.
Just. Like. Me."
Suzanne Vega, New York is My Destination

New York When It Snows

Literary Walk

"Everything feels like a memory in a city when it snows. It goes all blurry around its edges, like even as it's happening it's already an old photograph. The whole world seems softer, gentler, quieter. And when New York is the city where it's snowing, it's more like the version that's suspended in my snow globe collection, where everything about it appears to be small and clean and pretty, and where anything feels possible."
Ashley Woodfolk, When You Were Everything

Achieving Goals in NYC

Riverside Park steps

"The people I knew around my age who came from outside New York generally succeeded in achieving their goals more than the people I knew who were born in New York. And I always thought that was because the people who were born in New York knew how hard New York was. But the people from outside had no idea. So there’s something to be said for that type of ignorance."
Fran Lebowitz, The Brooklyn Rail

International City of Motion

World Trade Center Station

"New York is an international city of motion, where energy is felt in the air."
Kasia Dietz, Lost in Cheeseland

Runway Walking

Midtown Manhattan

"When you’re in New York, the energy and attitude on the streets is just unmatched, you know? Everyone acts like they are walking the runway. It’s infectious, it has energy."
Rita Ora, Council of Fashion Designers of America

New York Mayor for President

Downtown Manhattan

"I have a prediction. I think Mayor Adams is going to be our fourth straight New York mayor who decides to run for president. Calling it now. I love that a New York mayor thinks that other people in this country come here to visit and when they leave they think, ‘You know who should be in charge here? They can't handle trash pickup but I'd love to see what they do with the U.S. military.'"
Seth Meyers, American Museum of Natural History Gala

Masterpiece

Downtown Manhattan

"New York is a work of art in and of itself. It’s a masterpiece that shouldn’t make sense, yet somehow, it does."
Jacqueline E. Smith, Once Upon A Times Square

Two Sides of Anything

St. Patrick's Cathedral and Olympic Tower

"New York is a monster with the head of Goddess and the four legs of animal. New York is a queen in one side and a beggar in the other. New York is the warmest heart like a mother, and is the coldest like a razer, New York has two sides as anything. New York is compound: after all I can not understand of New York."
Yone Noguchi, Yone Nuguchi: The Stream of Fate

Sense of Urgency

Wiliamsburg Bridge

"Your sense of urgency is non-existent right now. Are you even a New Yorker?"
Anonymous, via Overheard in New York

City of Dreams

Empire State Building

"New York City: The subject of countless songs, the setting for beloved TV shows and movies, the City of Dreams, the Capital of the World. Thousands move to New York every day in hopes of experiencing that magical Something the city promises." 
Tobias van Schneider, vanschneider.com

Quietest City

Williamsburg

"New York is the quietest city
I know,
only among
a million beating hearts
could you still hear
the cigarette burn
on a balcony
in Brooklyn."
Atticus, Love Her Wild

Black and White

Rose Hill

"New York is very black and white. I like that. At least if you’re unhappy here you know it and if you’re happy you know it."
Cher, Interview Magazine

Birth of a Year

"Revelers" by Jane Dickson

"The birth of a year in New York is accompanied by the most stupendous sound I have ever heard. That is, not stupendous so much in the way of noise as in the terrific heart rending harmony it carries. To me it always sounded like the birth of all creation, especially if one was high up over it in some tall building where the individual noises were blended into the great whole." 

Dolly Grey, Dolly and Zane Grey