I didn’t need to think too hard about this week’s prompt of Town & Country for Sunday Scribblings. I wouldn’t have spent the last five years living in NYC if I wasn’t in love with big cities. This place will push your boundaries and comfort levels in so many ways that you better really love it here if you want to stick around.
Aside from access to unbelievable restaurants, theater, art and everything else, here are a few examples of why I love living in a place with 8 million people:
- A run away horse wreaking havoc in Midtown Manhattan yesterday.
- Manhattanhenge: When the setting sun is perfectly aligned with the east-west grid of Manhattan streets.
- Pimped up taxis.
- The global island of Manhattan.
- And my personal favorite, the Egg Roll and Egg Cream Festival at the point in lower Manhattan where Chinatown meets the Jewish Lower East Side. The festival “celebrates the two cultural groups that have lived and worked on the block, from the East European Jewish immigrants of a century ago to the Chinese community of today.” Highlights include: performances by a Chinese opera star, Chinese folk-music ensemble, and klezmer group; hands-on demonstrations by a Torah scribe, yarmulke and tefillin makers, and a paper-lantern maker; Yiddish and Chinese children’s games, and, kosher egg creams and egg rolls.
What else can I say? What about you? Town or country? You can read more here.
Never been to NYC. Most people I know love it. Me? Give me the country anytime.
Manhattanhenge – wow!
I love cities and the countryside. Love living in my small city with lots of stuff going on and lots of green space! Perfect!
Oh man, I’m eternally torn between the two. I must have both! I’ve lived in a city for the past several years, and my Denver experience has been much more city-fied than my Nashville one. I love walking and biking everywhere, the cultural opportunities and the colorful people. That said, I find the simplicity and richness of the country equally appealing. I’m still trying to figure out how to have it all.
I love your masthead, by the way–the silver building reminds me of the Weisman Art Museum at the U of MN campus. NYC is a wonderful place (it’s where I got engaged!).
Molly — The masthead for individual posts (there’s a different one for the main page, and another for the subpages) is from a photo of the Experience Music Project in Seattle, my hometown and another favorite big city!
My preference is a small, but hip town – preferably near the ocean. If I could afford it, I would move to Carmel, CA in a heartbeat.