Reason to Be Thankful

Photo: Patrick J. Cashin

"I wake up every morning and say to myself, 'Well, I'm still in New York. Thank you, God.'"
Ed Koch, Vanity Fair

What New Yorkers Do

Sixth Avenue

"That's what New Yorkers do. They read about other New Yorkers."
Ned Zeman, Vanity Fair

Ambition

590 Madison Avenue

"New York is a city where ambition is commonplace as fire hydrants. Elsewhere, the common denominator of conversation might be politics or children; here it is work."
Sally Platkin Koslow, Cue Magazine

Electricity

New York seen from space (Photo: NASA)

"New York is like electricity. The efficiency and vitality of all America is transmuted to me here."
Cecil Beaton, quoted in Popular Photography

MetroCard and Therapy

110th St. subway station

"It’s New York; you are required to have a metro card and access to therapy at all times."
Jessica Ciencin Henriquez, Salon Magazine

Insane People

110th street station

"The subway is great, man, but I'll tell you, if you were wondering where all the insane people in New York are, they're riding the C train."
Matt Dillon, Gotham Magazine

Precipice

Top of the Rock

"New York has always needed to be saved. It thrives on the precipice, teeters on a knife-edge of chaos and ambition."
Joe Klein, New York Magazine

City of Survivors

Silverstein Family Park

"New York has always struck me as a city of survivors, of people who have succeeded largely because they have somehow managed not to be knocked by the wayside."
Stephen Birmingham, Cincinnati Magazine

Misfits

Astor Place

"A real New Yorker is someone who came from somewhere else where they felt like an outsider and then chose to move to New York to be around other misfits."
Susan Seifelman, New York Magazine

Our Paris

The High Line

"New York is a special case, our Paris; you go to have your corners knocked off."
Larry McMurtry Texas Monthly

Nouveau Riche

Astor Place

"New York has always been the home of the nouveau riche. I'm the nouveau pauvre now, compared to others."
Brooke Astor, quoted in New York Magazine

Narcissus

Harlem Meer and Central Park North

"New York is the Narcissus among cities, ready to die for love of itself."
Frances Wilson, Travel Magazine