Leaving New York

Holland Tunnel

"The thing about leaving New York is that, forever after, people will ask if you miss it. My default answer, until recently, was no. I missed the people I’d left behind — my family and friends, the people who’d known me all my life — but I didn’t miss the city. New York changed, I would say. The New York I loved no longer exists."
Cari Luna, Salon

Never Listening

Penn Station

"People in New York never really listened to anyone else; they just waited for a break in the action so they could start to speak, push off with their own boat into the slipstream of talk."

Anna Quindlen, Alternate Side

Possibility City

Harlem

"My own favorite thing about New York: It is possibility city. Nowhere else do you have as much of a sense when you get up in the morning that your life could be completely different by evening, merely according to whether you turn right or left when you get to a particular street corner."
Jay Molivesher, New York Magazine

A Slum

Williamsburg

"Unless you're rich, New York is like a slum. It's like India."
Jennifer Miller and ‎Jason Feifer, Mr. Nice Guy

Forced to Interact

168th Street subway station

"New Yorkers nurture so many industries — finance, trade, and tech — and have so many influences, and come from so many cultural backgrounds. And because we’re forced to be together and interact physically in our daily lives, my life feels more vital. We take the subway with lawyers, homeless people punching each other, nurses falling asleep on their way home, teachers scolding their students, and many other people from every walk of life."
Ethan Hawke, Variety

Say Anything

Astor Place

"In the beginning I was of the mind that I could say or do anything. I was from the Bronx, and who didn’t say what they thought there?"
Jennifer Lopez, Vogue

Case Study of Authenticity

Madison Square Park

"The colorful characters that strut down the city's streets, they inspire and challenge every notion of what identity is. NYC is a live case study of authenticity and what it means to truly be free to express yourself and by being free, I mean in every sense of the word."
Richie Shazam, Vice