Cardinal Rule

"There’s one cardinal rule: When the city goes into a crisis you stay, you help your neighbors, you support your local shops, you clean up your block, you get tight with the cops, the firemen, the bus drivers. You support each other. That’s what makes you a New Yorker. You pay those dues."

Christopher McHale, Medium

Fancy Restaurant

"Living in New York is like going to a fancy restaurant. You know you can’t afford to taste the best things on the menu, so you split an expensive appetizer, you order a glass of tap water, and you call it a night. But you still get to tell everyone that you ate there."
Keri Savoca, Medium

Love Story

Oculus

"Me and New York would go out and get drunk and talk about books and act like we were more sophisticated than we were and pretend we had never lived in the suburbs of Cleveland and be like, 'God, I can’t believe I got lucky enough to find you.' I never really fell out of love with New York."
Devin Friedman, Medium

Central Relationship

Love by Robert Indiana (Pixabay)

"When I moved there in the late ’90s, I instantly fell in love with New York in a way that I had never and will never fall in love again (with a piece of geography). It was basically the central relationship of my life for a long time."
Devin Friedman, Medium

Falling in Love with New York

Times Square (Pixabay)

"Millions of people fall in love with New York all the time. It might be terrible and disgusting and unlivable, but it also makes you walk around any other city like an asshole saying, 'You call that a bagel/financial district/traffic jam/naked cowboy/billionaire oligarch/pricey hamburger/art museum/nightlife/everything?'"
Devin Friedman, Medium

Menagerie

"A metropolis, a menagerie filled with yellow, white, red, black, brown. You name it; it all exists in New York. Every color of the rainbow, every language of the planet, every food of the world, every fantasy you can imagine… nearly every."
Gayle Kirschenbaum, Medium

New York Doesn't Love You

Little Italy

"New York City doesn't love you. Why would you think you're in a relationship with New York? It's not a boyfriend or a parent. New York will never give you its approval because New York City is too busy being New York City to care about you."
John Devore, Medium

Penal Colony

"New York is a penal colony. Part Troy, part mall. The rivers and oceans are natural moats keeping the maniacs in, and the rest of the country relatively safe."
John Devore, Medium