I still love you, New York

New York don’t care what you think. is a city of sharp elbows and sharper tongues, a place where dreams are born and buried on the same block. But somehow, even when it chews you up and spits you out, you keep coming back, begging for more.

I’ve returned to this mess of ambition and asphalt, looking for something. I don’t know what, but I’m sure I will find it eventually. This time, I’m a bit weary. As Indiana Jones would put it, “it’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage”.

Sunset from Empire State Building.

The unique skyline still cuts through the clouds like a middle finger to the rest of the world. And beneath it, millions of lives grind against each other like tectonic plates. Friction, noise and heat stirring in the melting pot that never quite blended. It’s beautiful in a disjointed gritty way, like a half-remembered dream from another life. The kind of place where your soul might get mugged, but at least it’ll be an interesting story.

Street spirit.

It’s a sunny September day. The summer’s swan song mixes with the first crisp bite of fall. I walk from grimy subway stations in Brooklyn to rooftop bars in Hell’s Kitchen. The streets smell like roasted peanuts, exhaust fumes and the sweat of several million lives colliding. The manholes are still exhaling white steam like there’s a hundred angry dragons beneath our feet. The graffiti-covered walls speak more truth than any advertising campaign ever will. If I let my mind drift for just a second, I will be maimed by the courier bikers passing intersections at warp speed.

But I still love you, New York.

“The world won’t wait and I watched you shake
But honey, I don’t blame you
Hell, I still love you, New York”
— Ryan Adams, New York New York (2001)