New York Lunatics

"Aboveground lunatics tended to blend into the messy New York landscape. No one wanted to look at them for fear they might ask them for money or do something embarrassing. But subway lunatics had a captive audience, so they tended to be performers of one kind or another. They sang, they danced, they wore outrageous outfits."
Ellen Potter, Olivia Kidney and the Secret Beneath the City

Island

NYC ferry

"Manhattan is an island. Of course, everyone knows that, but it's so smooshed with buildings and people and police sirens and street fairs and restaurants that it's easy to forget it. You think it's the center of the universe when you're in it. From the boat, though, you can't believe how puny it all is."
Ellen Potter, Slob

Melancholy

World Financial Center Plaza

"Without the crowds, New York City seemed very old and melancholy, like someone who had seen many sad things and tried to fill their life with hullabaloo to keep from thinking too much."
Ellen Potter, Olivia Kidney and the Secret Beneath the City