Never Finished

Fifth Avenue

"Modern New Yorkers have grown accustomed to the experience of going around the corner to what was last week's favorite delicatessen only to discover that, this week, it has become a wig shop; or finding, where the little place that sold handbags used to be, just off Lexington, that the entire block has disappeared to make room for an office tower. Faced with yet another example of the fact that New York is a restless, ever-changing, never-finished city, New Yorkers simply shrug and go on about their business."
Stephen Birmingham, Life at the Dakota

City of Survivors

Riverside Park

"New Yorkers have learned to cope with life's worst vicissitudes, and this nil admirari attitude, they say, is one reason why New York considers itself a city of survivors. Only the fittest make it here. The unfit, having tried and failed, go home to Peoria, where they do just fine."
Stephen Birmingham, Life at the Dakota