hello to all this
new york city forever
“either New York is not a city, or it’s the only city in the world.” my best friend Elana said that when we were fourteen years old, and i have yet to hear a better distillation of this place.
new york is something else. it defies comparison, though that won’t stop Eric Adams from trying. loving it, hating it, surviving it, being crushed by it — none of these are a reliable indicator of how you’ll respond to any other place.
sometimes people are surprised to learn i’m not actually from here, which is always flattering. i get why they’d assume: my parents are from Queens, my grandfather drove a yellow cab, my dad’s been a bellman at the same Midtown hotel for three decades, and i am very loud. but volume is a Jersey export, too.
once i asked someone why they thought i grew up here. they shrugged and said, “you just seem to really love it.” which is true! i would never go to war for my country, but i might for my city. i can’t leave it without talking about it. whenever i get more than five miles outside the boroughs i become present-tense Britta Perry — especially this year, once i realized how many people think the mayor of new york city has the power to commandeer housing in suburban new jersey (not yet, but we’re working on it!). of course people pay outsized attention to what happens here. this is the greatest and most important city in the world. on any given day, a hundred things go unnoticed here that would be eon-defining events anywhere else on earth. this is a magical, impossible place, filled with magical, impossible people.
that’s partly why i get so incensed when people who feel entitled to run this city don’t even live here, don’t even like it, or threaten to jump ship if they don’t get to be the captain. it transcends standard megalomania; it’s somehow more hollow and sinister. even the wizard lived in Oz (at least i assumed…maybe he was in jersey, too).
with the caveat that the NYC mayor is duty-bound to eventually become the most hated person on earth, i am still thrilled that the next person to lead this city appears to actually like it. to the m/billionaires threatening mass exodus: first of all, i don’t believe you. you don’t live here because of the corporate tax rate; you live here because it gives you access to some of the best food, music, film, theater, art, and schools anywhere on the planet. you just don’t think the people who make this city an exciting and interesting playground for you deserve to live anywhere near you.
and even if you do “leave” (calculate the bare minimum number of days you can play here without having to pay tax), we don’t care. new york city should be full of people who love it, who enjoy living with other people instead of above them, who actually want to be here.
for all my complaints, i have never for a single second hated this city. of course, i’ve loathed its leadership, its landlords, its embarrassing capitulation to wealth at the direct expense of the workers and artists who made this a place everyone wants to live. but the city itself i have loved ferociously, without interruption. even that time i stepped off a crowded subway car so people could get off and then nobody let me back on. or all the times i asked “is it raining?” and the answer was “no, worse.” or when i wandered the streets for hours without seeing another human in 2020. or when that truck veered into the bike lane and sent me flying over the handlebars. or all the firsts of the month i made rent by the skin of my teeth. even when i got pepper sprayed or arrested or when i snuck into an UES apartment building to distribute “tax the rich” literature and the doorman chased me halfway down the block. i have always, always loved it.
how could i not? the movie theaters and museums that let me in for free when i was broke. the cashier at CVS who took one look at my purchases (a pregnancy test and sleeping pills) and told me “every day above ground is a good day”. the thousands of people who came out to the streets to support our union during a strike. everyone who ever gave me a drink or a coffee or a meal on the house when they knew i really needed it. the strangers who washed pepper spray out of my eyes. the bus driver who let me board, bleeding from the knees, and said “stay low” as he drove me past a barricade of cops rounding up protesters. the woman who talked me out of climbing onto the subway tracks to retrieve my shoe. the neighbor who let me climb through their window when i’d locked myself out of my apartment. the subway preacher who helped me untangle my purse from the turnstile and then ordered “no more masturbation, okay?” everyone who never bothered me when i was crying in public. the people who banded together to feed their neighbors during a pandemic. i have been held by this city forever. but i have never loved it as much as i have this week. for years i’ve wept behind sunglasses on the subway; rarely has it been out of overwhelming joy.
some part of me will always live in this week. elsewhere, the vibes on tuesday night were desolate, but for us, it was electric. after a morning of last-minute canvassing, friends found each other at bars to watch the returns together. it didn’t take long. the place erupted. on the brief walk home, i seized my lover like a nurse in times square. we barely made it through the door. i threw my keys and didn’t find them for days.
on wednesday morning, i scoured my neighborhood for a copy of the Post’s deranged post-election issue. “we sold out in ten minutes!” the woman at the newsstand beamed. (the guy at the bodega with the good lotto tickets claimed he sold out in five.) it was a fruitless quest until my friend Elana, still one of the wisest people i know, scored the last few copies at a shop in jersey city. we met at a restaurant we’ve loved for fifteen years, then caught a play on broadway. it’s the best kind of languid hang, where friends drift in and out of our company.
it ends with three of us — high school friends turned former roommates who got priced out of our shared apartment — huddled over fries in a midtown pub. we laugh through the Post’s catastrophizing about our communist future, marveling at the novelty and texture of a print newspaper. we read our horoscopes aloud. despite the rest of the paper’s omens, good things are in store for us all. it’s an unremarkable, unforgettable night in the only city in the world.