Welcome to the city that doesn’t welcome you at all. Tourists flock to Times Square like flies to a light bulb, just to find themselves suffocating in a sea of like-minded people. In an endeavor to escape, they navigate the depths, only to be warded off from the noxious fumes of a territorial hobo. Gasping for air once more, they emerge from the subway to cross the nightmare that is the Brooklyn Bridge. There, they will miss the grid system back in Manhattan that made life so easy, ultimately concluding that New York isn’t as tourist-friendly as they may have thought. Welcome to the city that doesn’t welcome you at all, a place where eight million people call home.
Despite it’s unforgiving nature, New York has something that most cities lack. That certain element, the one that makes it a factory for culture and a popular topic for movies and music alike, is its character. Take a break from the filth and pigeon poop and go visit Central Park, located in the heart of Manhattan. If brilliantly synthetic nature isn’t your style, visit the MoMa, or the Guggenheim, or the Met, or the Natural History Museum, or anywhere for that matter. With New York, you have options. It may not like you, but you will love it.
I grew up right in Upper East Side Manhattan. Childhoods in New York are arguably better than almost any other place in the world, in that there’s so much to do at any time in the year. Summer means sports, icies off the streets and public park pools for the daring, Winter on the other hand means Central Park. It means getting dressed in ridiculous thermal overalls because being healthy and goofy is better than being trendy and sick. It means hot chocolate before AND after going sledding down my family’s favorite slope, dodging other kids and pretending to make a getaway. Winter in Central Park actually means snow in New York City, the kind that isn’t black and squishes under your galoshes. It means the Alice in Wonderland statue is set on repel, because touching it means you have to thaw out your hand or surgically remove it. It means walking on the solid ice that the ducks swim on in the spring and watching a couple of Picassos make an igloo. Winter in Central Park means grabbing fistfuls of snow and hurling them at Aba only to get hit three times harder by a middle eastern who actually knows how to make them properly. Winter is a time when smokers on the street victimize their thumbs to get their lighters to work. The fresh smell of evergreens invades the streets, ready to be sold for festivities. That is what a New Yorker’s childhood is like.
Though childhoods in New York are nothing short of amazing, growing up is not solely confined to one’s childhood. There’s a transitional stage involved which requires deep self-reflection. Aided with an open New York City, it is easy to get lost and find yourself at the same time. During my teenage years I did a lot of exploring with my friends. We scavenged the depths of Brooklyn, probed the west side river area and excitedly investigated downtown Manhattan. I went to gigs, shopped, saw movies, bowled, ice skated and more. New York is great for these kind of activities, but its true value comes out during your alone time. Hop the fence behind a staircase right by the east river on 82nd and your feet dangle right over the water as you stare out at Roosevelt island. The tides may prevent you from seeing your reflection, but I can vouch that place never stops spoon feeding your thoughts. After this stage of discovery and gained independence, you can call yourself a true teenaged New Yorker.
As a young adult, I am ready to tackle the world. Atop buildings that scrape the sky, I’ve stared face to face with the end of the world. I’ve successfully logged hundreds of hours beneath the pavement and I’ve experienced more culture in New York than most people do in a lifetime. I’ve tackled the rare and miniscule natural disasters, hurricanes Irene and Sandy, and even lived through a blackout which sucked the life out of the the city for a small duration of time. Individually, we are all but worms in the Big Apple, but united we are a superpowered society that never sleeps.
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