Every now and again, someone will ask me whether I'd ever pick up and move somewhere else, be it a different metropolis or a more suburban domain. It's a fair question—Brooklyn born and raised, I've never lived anywhere but New York City. And though sticking to one city for a lifetime may seem a bit limiting to some, try as I might, I genuinely cannot imagine living anywhere else.
Sure, the sometimes comically exorbitant cost of living, the overstimulation of crowds, sounds, and light pollution, or a thick waft of garbage stewing in the late summer heat occasionally give me pause. But as with a longtime partner, these aren't deal-breakers. They're simply the idiosyncrasies I'm willing to overlook to keep a good thing going.
Vibrant and diverse, New York, New York, is a microcosm of the globe, home to every culture imaginable. On one city block, there's likely a multitude of international cuisines, the scent of authentic Birria mingling with Pad Thai and Jamaican beef patties. There are museums housing every artifact conceivable—centuries of precious art, exquisitely preserved fossils, vintage train cars, and curios from the sets of major motion pictures and beloved Broadway musicals. Amongst five boroughs, you'll find iconic theater, shopping, music venues, and live sports. You can walk through history, exploring bridges and memorials, public parks, and one of the largest conservation zoos in the world.
More concisely, no matter who you are, where you hail from, or what your interests are, there's a place for you here. This city's electric spirit, its rhythms and motions, its chaos and beauty, are why I can never imagine my life elsewhere. I can never leave, because New York is as much a part of me as I am a part of it. And I'm not alone—countless journalists, essayists, and memoirists have been indelibly impacted by this place too, for better, for worse, forever. Here are their stories, and in them, a living portrait of the town so nice they named it twice.
