New York Jewels

Gantry Plaza State Park

"The city always seemed alive to me, a great, jagged dragon sitting on its jewels—the unexpected alley garden on the Upper West Side, welcoming you to sit and rest; the homeless man on Madison Avenue who offered critiques of your outfits for five bucks; the brownstone on East Eighty-first street where no one lived, but which could be accessed by the garden door, so you could wander the empty rooms as if you owned the place. "
Kristan Higgins, If You Only Knew

Foster Child

Henry Hudson Bridge (Wikimedia Commons)

"As soon as I left Manhattan behind, the beneficent, regal creature forgot me. It tolerated me when I was a student of eighteen, it gave me my chance, it celebrated me when I made it, and it forgot me the second I drove over the Henry Hudson Bridge. You're always just a foster child in the city that never sleeps. The second you go, someone else takes your room."
Kristan Higgins, If You Only Knew