Definition of Nature

East 17th Street

"The definition of nature in New York is a little different to the rest of the world, but here we see a tree and that's pretty darn good."
Leonard Steinberg, Architectural Digest

Friendly Rain

"Rain in New York seems to arrive from so great a distance, picking its way through so many intervening obstacles, as to be a friend bearing a precious message."
John Updike, Architectural Digest

Acceleration of the Pulse

"As one arrives, there is the old acceleration of the pulse—the mountainous gray skyline glimpsed from the Triborough Bridge, the cheerful games of basketball and handball being played on the recreational asphalt beside the FDR Drive, the startling, steamy, rain-splotched intimacy of the side streets where one’s taxi slows to a crawl, the careless flung beauty of the pedestrians clumped at the street corners. So many faces, costumes, packages, errands! So many preoccupations, hopes, passions, lives in progress! So much human stuff, clustering and streaming with a languid colorful impatience like the mass maneuvers of bees!"
John Updike, Architectural Digest

Giving Place

"New York used to be a giving place, a place that gave more than it took. Now it takes more than it gives."
Archibald MacLeish, quoted in Architectural Digest

Energy

Midtown Manhattan

"Being in New York takes so much energy as to leave none for any other kind of being."
John Updike, Architectural Digest

Soviet Union

"New York, like the Soviet Union, has this universal usefulness: It makes you glad you live elsewhere."
John Updike, Architectural Digest