The REAL Charm of New York City
The big apple. The supposed capital of the world. The city that never sleeps.
New York City is a lot of things.
Being the daughter of a New Yorker, I’ve made several trips to the city with my family, with friends, and by myself – and by this point, I could route myself around midtown without a map. So, whenever I travel abroad, and strike up a conversation with a European or Australian that is dying to see New York City, I always tell them this:
New York is not pretty, and it’s not beautiful.
It’s amazing.
View outside of the Public Library in Midtown; July 2019
Yes; New York is the epitome of the American Dream. It’s a city of hard working people, where the bigger and better aura is very apparent. There’s high-end fifth avenue shopping, Broadway shows to buy tickets to, New York Delis, cheesecake and thin crust pizza to try, Times Square, the Empire State Building, Central Park, The Statue of Liberty, and tons of other massive sights to see…
But it’s really the lifestyle; the incessant excitement – that makes New York… New York.
View from the Top of the Rock; March 2018
When I was sixteen, my mom and I went to New York during Christmas time. I was in the midst of the worst, and honestly only true, heartbreak of my life. My whole body felt hollow. I didn’t want to eat, and I only wanted to cry. I felt numb inside, and with every step I took – it’s like I could hear the empty space where my heart should’ve been. I hid my pain from everyone: my friends, my family – even my mom, on that trip.
It’s only when I was sitting in a Starbucks, having a Peppermint Mocha on eighth avenue and thirty-ninth street, watching the flashing lights of Times Square from afar, black-and-yellow checkered taxi cabs trying to run over run another, and people walking with one foot after the other in constant, consistent motion that I realized…
… this is life. It doesn’t stop for anyone, or anything.
Central Park; March 2018
It was that moment that saved me. Why? Because it’s only in New York City, with its incessant overstimulation, maniac drivers, and hyper walkers... where you will always be reminded that life keeps going. That is and will always be New York City’s charm to me, because of how New York City saved me during the most heartbroken time of my life. How all it took was for me to look out the window, watch the streets, and the cars, and the people hustling with the exploding advertisements and lights...to let it hit me.
That life keeps moving forward. It stops for nothing and no one.
View of Times Square from an Uber in the pouring rain at night; July 2019
Yeah, there’s Times Square & Broadway, and it’s all “bigger & better”, and there’s high end shopping, and there are NYC deli’s and thin crust pizza, and there are massive sights to see.... but it’s really about how the environment shows you the harsh realities of life; that times only moves one way – and that you must do the same.