Leading Man

"Undeniably the globe's other place, its virtual second home, is New York. It's not just because Manhattan looks so memorable, or that it was the gateway for so much immigration. It is the first city of the electric age. We know it because it's been in our living room, kitchen and bedroom all our lives. New York is the greatest, most enduring, leading-man, heart-throb location of the screen. New York is the stage of our collective dramas."
A.A. Gill, The Golden Door

New York Climate

"The one thing you probably won't be expecting in New York is the climate. No one in their right mind would build a city here. Well, only the Dutch, and they built a whole country below sea level. New York bakes in a cess of gritty fug all summer,  and congeals into grey slush all winter. There are a couple of days in the spring and autumn when the sky is madonna blue, the air crisp, and the light bright and sparkling, and that's when they take the pictures and make the romantic comedies."
A.A. Gill, The Golden Door

Live Sight

Williamsburg North

"Nothing is as panoramically familiar as your first live sight of New York. Not a single exclamation of ruin or edifice, but an entire novel you know by heart. It is the eternal, expanding cityscape that man-hugs you as you cross the bridge from Queens on the way in from the airport. You already know so much about the place: you know what the people sound like, you know what they think, you know about their theatrical anger and their dust-dry humor. You know how they walk, their gestures, how they order their coffee. You know what they eat, what's in their fridges and closets. You already know what the phones and the sirens sound like. New York is a club you've been a member of for a long time."
A.A. Gill, To America With Love

Safe

East Village

"It is safe now in New York, one of the safest cities in the world. It's not just safe, it minds how it goes. You can wear pearls in Times Square. You can wear nothing in Times Square. You can go and meditate in Washington Square. You're not even allowed to smoke in Central Park, let alone jump joggers. Now New York worries about its health instead of its safety."
A.A. Gill, To America With Love

Worst Dressed

Williamsburg

"New York is the worst-dressed rich city in the world. There is an inexplicable lost connection between the countless clothes shops, sophisticated, expensive, modern, classic, amused, serious, postmodern, and vintage, and the stuff, the schmutter that people actually put on in the morning. It's a city where the rich dress worse than the poor."
A.A. Gill, To America With Love