The skyline … neurosis … “Stand clear of the closing doors” … Shakespeare in the Park … the penthouse … pickles … very wealthy small children … the docents at the Met … seltzer … parties where everyone’s wearing black … “Page Six” … getting bus-slushed … the fine distinction among bodegas, delis, and corner stores … the knish … at 5 p.m., Town Cars lined up two deep in front of corporate buildings … Art Deco … standing under the Washington Square Park arch with its decrepit statue of George Washington and gazing up Fifth Avenue . . .
“I’m on the list” … the beat cop … famous people at the newsstand early in the morning so they can be the first to read their reviews … apartment envy … Ed Koch … spending the day sitting in the Cloisters’ medieval garden … illegally tapping fire hydrants . . .
Fairway … hanging out in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s tropical greenhouses in the winter … the Chelsea Hotel … the Oyster Bar … free science educations: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech and Cooper Union … rich ladies with small dogs on Madison Avenue … East Village residents glaring at preppy NYU students … gypsy cabs … the Blessing of the Animals at St. John the Divine … bars in converted banks, beauty salons, libraries, and pharmacies … the Children’s Aid Society … that first warm day in spring when suddenly everyone’s walking around nearly naked … handing off an unused transfer to someone waiting for the bus … figuring out how much money your friends make … rent control … “My friend’s band is playing CB’s tonight” … everything bagels … the Learning Annex . . .
Macy’s Santa … elderly salesmen in blue blazers and tattersall shirts at Brooks Brothers … peddlers selling knockoff Gucci bags a block away from stores selling real Gucci bags … break-dancers on the L train … supermodels dancing at nightclubs … glitzy book parties … people who care about Woody Allen movies … calculating infinity not as grains of sand but as germs in the subway . . .
Serendipity 3 … your building’s super fixing everything between Thanksgiving and Christmas … corned beef or pastrami on rye … going to three movies in one day during the summer to keep out of the heat … stiff penalties for parking illegally … the World’s Fair site at Flushing Meadow … rats running out at you from empty lots … the Grill Room at the Four Seasons … lying about your address to get your kid into a better public school … the Brooklyn Heights Promenade . . .
Pete Hamill … scaffolding … the formerly famous …the dozens of fiercely competitive Indian restaurants on East 6th Street … the slice … the stage door … being arch … Spanglish … Ellis Island … Katz’s … Nathan’s … art students sitting on the floor of the Met with sketchbooks … Wigstock … blintzes … the packed “secret” bar … secretaries on the subway wearing power suits with panty hose, socks, and sneakers … the homeless shelter … token vs. MetroCard … smokers outside office buildings … gentrification like a tide that goes in and out … jay-walking as a sport … competing live Statues of Liberty at South Street Seaport … deafening car stereos … cemeteries in Queens … Caffe Reggio’s cappuccino … media moguls breakfasting at the Carlyle … spying on neighbors … Texans who have stronger accents after living in New York for five years than they did when they arrived … very skinny people … trying to figure out which is a taxi driver’s first name and which is the last … obscenely fat house cats … the museum pay-what-you-can day … Spider-Man . . .
Being woken up by jackhammers, garbage trucks, and car alarms … traders walking through the financial district in their blazers … calling the Upper East Side “the East Side” … Turkish baths … live shellfish in buckets on Canal Street … old ladies leaning out their windows all day, guarding the block … stoopball … the fountain at Lincoln Center … Tiffany’s … the pretzel … people swearing every year that it’s their last year in the city … pigeons … staying friends with people only because they have the perfect roof for fireworks or the perfect window for parades … Staten Island threatening to secede and no one (except Republican candidates) caring … motorcades snarling traffic … deli guys who memorize your order after a while so you never have to ask for your breakfast … cruise bars … the lions in front of the New York Public Library … diplomat parking spaces … unwritten but sacred social rules involving personal space (like, take off your backpack on the subway) … graffiti … McSorley’s ale . . .
New Yorkers gathering around lost tourists to argue about how they should get where they’re going … umbrella carnage on every corner after a storm … bike messengers … cheesecake … bohemianism … the $1,000 “key deposit” often required to secure an apartment … the Halloween Parade … the pot parade … egg creams … people selling batteries on the train … getting roasted nuts, never as good as they smell … brunch … mean museum guards … Manic Panic hair dye … the Strand Book Store … knowing someone who can get you a discount on anything in the world … the Peking Duck House … the Cyclone … steam rising from manholes … urban gardens … “the bridge-and-tunnel crowd” . . .
Century 21 …hosts’ not knowing anyone at their own parties … the invention of hip-hop … pride in showing off the city to friends in from out of town, profound disappointment when they just want to go to Saks … colleagues’ swearing you to secrecy about things that no one could possibly care about … lines around the block for stainless-steel breakfast carts … J. D. Salinger … Woolworth’s (R.I.P.) … Lou Reed … the little pinpoints of light from the Empire State Building’s observation deck when tourists forget to turn off the flashes on their cameras … the Carousel in Central Park … New Yorkers of every age, race, and class waiting patiently in four-block-long lines on 9/11 just to make an appointment to donate blood … those Greek blue-and-white paper coffee cups … affectionately surly wait staff … creative use of expletives … faux dive bars standing beside real dive bars … running around the reservoir … pointy shoes … in the subway, Guatemalan pipe players drowning out a jazz sax drowning out a Michael Jackson impersonator drowning out Jews for Jesus missionaries . . .
General Tso’s chicken …coffee “light and sweet” … Union Square Greenmarket … revs, cost, and air with the r backward scratched into subway windows … dog runs … famous people everywhere except where the tourists are looking for them … “I’m not a yuppie” … ladies-who-lunch … velvet ropes … the Staten Island Ferry as free Circle Line alternative … hearing ten languages spoken in the course of a single block … how the concept of “full” changes on trains during rush hour … punk teenagers sulking under the Astor Place cube … the Apollo … proud ignorance of U.S. geography … scorn for suburbia … bucks, not dollars … drumming on buckets … never seeing any stars … the Flatiron Building … finding great furniture on the street … the San Gennaro Festival … school trips to the dinosaur wing of the Museum of Natural History … joy at seeing a free cab even if you don’t need one right then … hoodies … nerds proud of being nerds . . .
Eloise of the Plaza … patent refusal to call Hell’s Kitchen “Clinton” … selling, buying, jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge … the world’s most arrogant, obnoxious video-store clerks … clever acronymic neighborhood names: Tribeca, Noho, Nolita, Dumbo, etc… . Letterman … everyone is moonlighting … world-class pickup basketball … jaded 6-year-olds … the Odeon … gallery-hopping in Chelsea … deep suspicions about what happens on Governor’s Island … “Houston” pronounced differently from anywhere else on earth … pooper-scooper laws … disintegrating Lower East Side tenements … the opening night of a Broadway show … the waterfront … nannies sitting on park benches together … telling time by clocks on tall buildings … Brighton Beach … blowing out-of-town guests’ minds by taking them to Canal Street in the middle of the day or Times Square late at night . . .
Leaving your newspaper in coffee shops or on buses for strangers to read … sitting on a stoop drinking beer out of brown paper bags … drinking martinis at an elegant old hotel bar … haggling with street vendors … Manny’s Music … New Jerseyites in Soho … the tree and skaters at Rockefeller Center … the mitzvah tanks … Euros wandering through Long Island City in search of MoMA QNS … that guy who dances with a life-size doll in the Times Square station … cater waiters … having a favorite panhandler … dating someone “high maintenance” … strange puddles on subway seats … the Hamptons jitney … the corner of Broadway and Prince … a vague fear of the natural world … a whole subway car full of people pretending nothing is happening even when someone just two feet away is screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs … gutters . . .
John Turturro … dim sum in Chinatown … fresh mozzarella in Little Italy … broken pay phones … the garment district … SNL … children having nervous breakdowns in FAO Schwarz … the witty aside … Zabar’s … those huge diamond beacons marking the entrance to West 47th Street’s Diamond Row … steaks, chops, seafood … coffee, donuts, muffins … Wave Hill … that black polka-dot pattern made by gum ground into the sidewalk … the Rockettes … the smell of horse manure outside the Plaza hotel … mangoes on a stick … film students shooting dramatic scenes in Tompkins Square Park with drunk old men looking on … building numbers that end with 1⁄2 … people camping outside the Public Theater waiting for tickets … jokes about combining the real-estate and obituary sections of the paper … Jersey guys in ecstasy over all the obscene T-shirts on St. Marks Place … double-dutch jump rope … the black-and-white cookie … dogs in purses . . .
24-hour diners … the New York Public Library reading rooms … getting bumped into a thousand times a day … Columbia University … lox … opera at the Met … dentists and doctors with offices on the ground floor of Fifth Avenue apartment buildings … don’t block the box … getting doused in beer at a Yankees game … gargoyles at the tops of buildings … strenuous testing of 2-year-olds for private preschool … summer movies in Bryant Park … the writer you know who doesn’t write … making fun of those dopey New York Times TV spots— “She goes for the ‘Arts & Leisure,’ and I head straight for the magazine” … community gardens … window washers 50 feet in the air . . .
Brooklyn high-school students hanging out UTB (under the bridge) … the Dakota … the Brooklyn Navy Yard … co-op boards … fire escapes … water towers … the confidence of living in the center of the universe.
On the Message Boards
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