Antidote to Elsewhere

Times Square

"New York is not usually a place for pretending you are elsewhere. It is the antidote to elsewhere."

Editorial, The New York Times

Incredible Parties

Velvet rope in Times Square

"New York is a fabulous lady who gives incredible parties. You're never invited, but you know they're there, and you know that once you get inside, it's going to be great."
Thomas Adcock, Drown All the Dogs

New York Crowds

Times Square

"The rhythm in New York is different to that in Paris, Singapore, Tokyo or Rome. Rome is hectic, whereas the crowds in New York are moving forward like a torrent of lava."
Heinz Paetzold, Senses and the City

Constantly Moving

Times Square

"I think just the energy of the city and the hustle is really what gets me going. And it's why I love New York so much. Just everything's constantly moving. You can do a million things in a day."
Blu DeTiger, V Magazine

Power in New York

Mounted police in Times Square

"Power is New York's sex and none of the people living here are unconscious of that fact. Watch the face of an off-duty cab driver in the rain; the painfully slow fingers of a token attendant as a subway rumbles into a station or the deliberate way a patrolman has of writing out a parking ticket. Power in New York is courted like a woman, and even her most ineffectual romancers write of her seduction like erotic monks."
Nicholas Pileggi, New York Magazine

Most Beautiful Thing

Times Square

"The first thing that people photograph or digest in New York is Broadway and Times Square–it's the most beautiful thing in New York, and in America."
William Klein, Aperture

American Dream

Times Square

"The heart of New York is grit and resilience. New York is truly a city of dreams and a city of immigrants. It embodies the American dream."
Nicola Mendelsohn, Time Out New York

Love Story

"Window to the Heart" in Times Square

"It’s no surprise that New York is such a popular a setting for romantic comedies — a genre that is, more often than not, about the newness of love. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy meets boy, girl meets girl . . . New York, with its endless crowded sidewalks, is practically designed for these happy collisions. Every morning you step out your front door into what is potentially Act One of a love story."
Carter Bays, The Financial Times

True Capital of America

Times Square

"At the risk of indulging in superlatives about a place that naturally lends itself to such things, New York is the true capital of America. Like America, it was born in conflict and commerce and lives in a mix of prose and poetry."
Chris Barsanti, The Handy New York City Answer Book

New Year's Eve in Times Square

New Year's Eve Centennial Ball

"There are only two circumstances where a dropping ball can qualify as a noteworthy event: male adolescence and New Year's Eve in Times Square. Having had no personal experience with the first, I will instead skip to the second and say that if you value your sanity, your extremities, and your bladder, you should find a different place to celebrate the new year."

Catherine Price, 101 Places Not to See Before You Die

Times Square

Times Square

"The island is vivid with energy. In that sense, Times Square has once again become our most perfect symbol: noisy, plural, brash, vulgar, shifting, slightly dangerous."
Pete Hamill, Downtown

New Year's Eve

"The overrated free calendar year begins and ends with a gathering of thousand of non-New Yorkers, most of whose primary motivation in life is to get on television. All the good sidelines spots in Times Square are long gone by dusk. Add the extra buzz kills of high security, crushing crowds, brutal cold, and a ban on booze, and that's all the excuse you need to say at home with the remote control, marveling at how much younger Dick Clark looks now than he did in his '50s heyday."
Frommer's New York City for Free & Dirt Cheap

Endless Summer

Times Square

"In Forty-second Street it is a glowing summer afternoon all night: one might almost wear white trousers and straw hat."

Paul Morand, New York