Created Concept

Great Jones Street

"There is no New York—it's just like a concept that you've created for it; it's like eight million moods."

Christopher Bollen, The Rumpus

Corporate Bank

Deutsche Bank

"I love New York, but it’s not a very inspiring place for creativity. It's very expensive, but not even in a Rome type of expensive. It's like corporate bank expensive."
Christopher Bollen, The Rumpus

Immigrants

"Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" by Ai Weiwei

"'No one in New York has parents,' William replied. 'Or families for that matter. We're all pretty much immigrants taking shelter here.'"
Christopher Bollen, Lightning People

Everything

"The darkness covered the city and then the city ate through that darkness with a radiation visible from outer space. That was the vision of New York Joseph stored in his head like a postcard. What happened here? The answer was everything."
Christopher Bollen, Lightning People

Fantasy

Winter Garden

"Most of us who come here from other places sincerely believe for a while that we can just leave our roots and start over reborn in New York. And New York encourages this fantasy."
Christopher Bollen, T Magazine

Squatters

"It's impossible to own New York. Which I guess makes it a sort of commune of paying squatters."
Christopher Bollen, Interview Magazine

Theory

"As New Yorkers, we generate new theories about the city on a monthly basis. My current theory is that New York doesn’t really exist. That it's not actually a physical place; it's just a bunch of ideas crammed together."
Christopher Bollen, The Rumpus