This is my town

Being from the South, I have out-of-town visitors regularly visit me in New York. While most everyone has a wonderful time when they come up, and some even come over and over again, there is one sentiment that I almost always get - "New York is great to visit, but I would never want to live here."

Let me be the first to say that I understand. Well actually, perhaps I don't, since somewhere deep inside of me I knew I would live here since the first time I step foot in the city when I was 12. But I do understand the lack of New York City's day-to-day appeal when visitors come and do the typical tourist fare...Times Square, Macy's, Broadway...I get claustrophobic just thinking about it. I completely empathize with anyone who cannot fathom wanting to live in the midst of Bubba Gump Shrimp, flashing tickers out your window at 3am, and 15 people per square foot just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, looking straight up (at the buildings...the sky...who knows?).

The tourist New York, though, is not my New York. The hotels and the maps and the unbearable crowds are not what drew me to the city. Yes, the neon lights and marquees can be glamorous and exciting, and yes, it is the City That Never Sleeps, but those are not the reasons that one falls in love with New York. Oddly enough, I have instead learned the opposite...that those of us who love the city deep down to the core love it because it's our town.

It may seem like a stretch to you, but in a lot of ways I think that New York is more like small town America than where I grew up in Atlanta. For starters, Manhattan, or "The City" as it's often referred to, is a mere 23 square miles - roughly half the size of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia and 15 times smaller than Cobb County. Add to that the fact that most of my friends live on the Upper East Side within a 5-block radius of my apartment, and the result is that I run into friends and acquaintances all the time. At first I thought it uncanny, seeing so many people so often in the largest city in the United States, but now it's just the norm. Take Saturday, for example. I stopped in Starbucks to get some coffee before heading to the gym. While there, I ran into my friend Naomi. Naomi introduced me to her friend Jenny, who was on her way to Boom Fitness, my gym, too. After exchanging numbers with Jenny, I ran into my friend Noah, who I ran into a few weeks prior in the subway, and a few weeks before that at the airport, and a few weeks before that just walking down the street with his wife, Jessica. By the time I got to the gym, where I saw my friend Lauren, I was starting to seriously regret the fact that I had deemed make-up an unnecessary requirement for a Saturday morning at the gym.

In addition to the fact that I bump into friends day in and day out, New York is also unique because I don't drive a car. And by "don't drive," I mean "don't own, am not insured, and don't think I remember how to drive." The no-car aspect of New York living makes the city feel even more like a small town. When I want to buy groceries, I walk a block and buy a few bags at a time. When I run out of shampoo, I hop over to the corner drug store and am back in five minutes. I walk to restaurants, I walk to the movie theater, and some days I even walk to work. I remember a very interesting and eye-opening conversation I had once with couple while in line for a movie. They lived in the city when they were first married, but when they had kids, they headed for suburban Connecticut. After living there for seven years, they felt like something was missing in their kids' lives...instead of riding their bikes to their friends' houses, they had to be driven. Instead of being allowed to walk to a park, they were confined to a cul-de-sac. And instead of being more healthy because they could play in the yard, they were actually less in-shape because they never really walked. Because of this, the couple moved with their children back into the city, where the kids are now allowed to walk, play and go to school on their own. Sounds like a 1950's Pleasantville town to me, but no - it's just the Upper East Side of New York City.

There are so many other things that I love about New York that feel more like a small town than a huge city...the parks are full of families and strollers, the streets of my uptown neighborhood are surprisingly quiet at night, and small, independent restaurants thrive even better than the big chains. More importantly, though, it's the sense of community among New Yorkers. Sure, people may walk fast and talk quickly and not offer you a seat on the subway, but from my Southern perspective, New Yorkers get a bad rap on the friendliness scale. I tripped on my heel walking down steps the other day, and three people stopped to help me up. I passed a sleeping homeless man on Saturday who had a box of Dunkin Donuts waiting for him when he woke up. And I've made friends with a woman I ride the bus with every day, my coffee cart guy, and my office building's doormen. New Yorkers may be harsh, but they come together for one another and for their city when the need is there.

How could anyone not want to live in a town like that?


"I've a cozy little flat
In what is known as old Manhattan.
We'll settle down
Right here in town.

We'll have Manhattan,
The Bronx and Staten Island, too.
It's lovely going through the zoo.

It's very fancy
On old Delancey Street, you know.
The subway charms us so
When balmy breezes blow to and fro.

And tell me what street
Compares with Mott Street in July?
Sweet pushcarts gently gliding by.

The great big city's a wondrous toy
Just made for a girl and boy.
We'll turn Manhattan
Into an isle of joy."

Lorenz Hart