Thinking About Money

Morgan Stanley

"It was more difficult to work in New York and not think about money than it was not to think about sex or food."
Judith Krantz, I'll Take Manhattan

From Lavish to Desolate

East Houston

"In no other city in the country did the lives of rich and poor intersect more than New York. There were pockets of the city where one faction had completely taken over --Park Avenue for the rich, East New York for the poor-- but in large swaths of the city you had only to walk a few blocks to go from lavish to desolate and back again."
Justin Peacock, Blind Man's Alley

A Very Queer Place

Manhattan (Schuyler Shepherd / Wikimedia Commons)

"New York is a very queer place. All the old teachings of conservatism, the 'systems' of the old world, fall to the ground there. We find variety and pleasure in being rich to-day and poor to-morrow; we make a fortune in a day and spend it in a week, and our business principles do not savor of great nicety, or of what the old world calls ‘strict honesty.' Smartness is our watchword."

Monk, Going And Son

The New York Game

"The real purpose of the evening for most of the attendees was to play the New York game: to show off what they had and compare it to others who had as much or more."
Olivia Goldsmith, The First Wives Club

New York Law

Fifth Avenue

"It's a law of New York City: no matter how much money you're making, you're surrounded by people making more."
Bridie Clark, The Overnight Socialite

Money

One Central Park

"This New York was so different from the city in which he'd grown up. Manhattan was all about money now, all about trying to make enough of it just to survive."
Adam Langer, The Thieves of Manhattan

Vulgar Fortunes

The Trump World Tower

"Money is made easily by many in New York; fortunes are acquired in a day; families go from a shanty on a back street to a brown-stone front in upper New York, but they carry with them their vulgar habits, and disgust those who from social position are compelled to invite them to their houses. "
Matthew Hale Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York

Aloof and Indiferent

Winter Garden

"A splendid place is this New York; splendid but terrible... It overwhelms with its lavish display of wealth, it stuns with its tireless, battering energy. But it stays aloof, indifferent it if loved or hated; if it crush or sustain."
Harry Leon Wilson, The Spenders

New York Money

Fifth Avenue

"I have never walked down Fifth Avenue alone without thinking of money. I have never walked there with a companion without talking of it."
Anthony Trollope, North America

It Springs from Money

Woolworth Building

"There is little in New York that does not spring from money. It is not a town of ideas; it is not even a town of causes. But what issues out of money is often extremely brilliant."
H. L. Mencken, A Second Mencken Chrestomathy

Like a Child

Sixth Avenue

"In its extravagance, its luxury, its expensiveness, its general carelessness with money, New York is like a child that has not learned self-restraint but has its pockets well filled."
Robert Shackleton, The Book Of New York

Money Talks

Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

"In New York, boy, money really talks — I'm not kidding."
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Life in New York

JPMorgan Chase headquarters

"Life in New York is a costly and complicated business."
Ellen Olney Kirk, The Story of Margaret Kent

The Word "Millionaire"

J.P. Morgan's study

"New York was a city where men made such incredible fortunes that a new word, 'millionaire,' was on everybody's lips."
Lloyd R. Morris, Incredible New York

Faster

East 42nd

"In New York, faster was important. The quick get rich faster."
Beverly Swerling, City of Dreams

Useless and Evil Things

H. Stern store on Fifth Avenue

"During many a single week, I daresay, more money is spent in New York upon useless and evil things than would suffice to run the kingdom of Denmark for a year."
H.L. Mencken, A Second Mencken Chrestomathy

Just Poor

Chelsea

"In a state like Minnesota or Wisconsin you can be poor and still feel some sense of dignity if you work hard and live fairly cleanly and you keep your eye on the future. But here in New York it seemed as if when you're poor you're just poor. And that means you're nobody. Really nobody."
Robert M. Pirsig, Lila

Flimsy Mirage

West 57th Street

"New York, a dreamscape of opportunity, often presented a flimsy mirage. Large houses rose around a sudden fortune then disappeared in half a decade, blown away like stage props."
Ellen Horan, 31 Bond Street

Before Moving to New York

Google

"If you are going to live in New York it is well first to take the precaution of being a millionaire."
George Warrington Steevens, The Land of the Dollar

For the Rich

Downtown Manhattan Heliport

"New York is a city for the rich by the rich."

Choire Sicha, New York Stories