Seventeen Days in New York

An attempt to describe the most-described place on earth.

it’s so difficult to write about new york - anything worth writing about has been written about already. and to compare it to LA, of all places… impossibly hackneyed.

but i just spent two and a half weeks there, and it’s what’s on my mind. so i’m going to try my hand at it. i’m okay with failing, and besides: if you write in all lowercase, it’s like you didn’t even try to begin with. right?

there is a stereotype i held - and i think many hold - that new yorkers aren’t friendly. i think it’s more that there is no pretense there. if you are in the way, you will be told to move; if your friend needs a coffee, they will go get the coffee, with or without you.

they are not sympathetic to beginners. sometimes you are waiting for a bus and no one else is waiting for the bus, which is confusing, because google says there is going to be a bus. the bus doesn’t come, because everyone else knew something that you did not. and an old man is watching you from his stoop as if you are the afternoon’s entertainment. maybe you are. to be new to new york is to constantly feel a little stupid. when you’re stupid in LA, it’s okay, because the people around you are looking at their phones.

new york is sweaty. sometimes you are schvitzing and want to change your shirt, or the air is thick with pollen and you need to blow your nose, but there is nowhere to retreat to.

there is nowhere private in new york, which is both terrifying and unifying. in other places, you seek out a castle with a moat that protects you from the big bad. in new york, you put on your suit of armor and charge into the fray. you blow your nose loudly on lexington avenue.

you have to fight to stay in new york, but the city rewards persistence. it adopts you, claims you, knights you. it shows you its secrets and polishes your armor.

new yorkers do things in person - they see theater, they go to book signings, they attend parties. they absorb culture for reasons beyond signaling that they’re cultured.

there are so many places to buy books, and people do. they read. some read feminist theory performatively on the subway, some read manuscripts for work, but either way, they read. most of them have real people jobs that aren’t hyphenates. some of them even wear suits.

the girls there have so many reasons not to wear sun dresses and yet they wear more sun dresses than the LA girls do. maybe it’s because sunny days are special.

new yorkers go to the park when it’s sunny, as if only idiots wouldn’t. they take the way home that winds through trees.

they go to second locations with friends of friends. there is serendipity (not the frozen hot chocolate kind, though there’s that too). you can end up anywhere and with anyone - invites beget invites. it is so easy to be adopted in new york, to suddenly find yourself in a situation that is four best friends and also you at a bar you did not know existed.

some of this is because it’s easy to get around; they don’t have to work out carpools or DDs or traffic or ubers. but i think mostly it’s because the people who live there are open to serendipity. they signed up for new york because they want life to happen to them. when you visit, they insist that life happen for you too. and it does.

it’s an old city, which means that you can still find things - carvings on buildings, mosaics in bathrooms, grand staircases - that were meticulously created just to be beautiful. you’d think that the population density would lead to everything being utilitarian. but no.

you have to walk in new york. you have a long day of walking and then you get to go home, but it’s a 35-minute subway ride or a 27-minute walk and so you walk home. and then you get to your home and there are stairs. you spent much of my time there trudging.

but trudging alone in new york makes you feel like you are a cog in a grand machine. we are each our own little machines in LA, i think.

i like that you can listen to frank sinatra, to sutton foster, to lorde, to earth, wind, & fire while walking down the street in new york, and all of them feel correct. (we get the beach boys though, thank god)

people meet their life partners in new york, and it’s very cute. cuter still, most of them seem baffled by the fact that they are in love. “he’s just… great,” they say, somehow mystified that their boyfriends are great.

new yorkers are either alcoholics or sober. they still smoke cigarettes (imagine!). they assume everyone else is drinking and smoking like they are, that most 32-year-olds in america also love a drunk ciggy.

people in LA worry that our vices will age us, and nothing is worse than aging. you see less plastic surgery in new york - they’re less afraid of wrinkles. after all, wrinkles prove you fought the city and won. people aspire to be old in new york. no one in LA aspires to be old at all.

there is no place that is really, truly quiet in new york. even visually. the ground is mosaicked, the corners are heavy with trash bags, and no one has blackout curtains. they seem to need less sleep, and sleep more soundly; it’s simply recharging.

LA is quiet. there are lots of nooks and crannies here, lots of little moated castles in which you can take a breath to gather yourself and wash your hands and sit in air conditioning. there are places to pee. my god, do we have places to pee.

i love my trader joes with its big aisles and 3 cashiers. i love driving there in 7 minutes flat and buying a ton of groceries and bringing them up in my elevator. i love that a weekend night in does not feel wasted. i love that it is warm but that i rarely find myself in mixed company with pit stains. i love that people will help you if you don’t know, that it’s cold at night, that you’re allowed to meander.

everyone in new york is a little miserable, but most of them sincerely believe that there is no other place. i think there are other places and other, different miseries, but they’re right that there is a melancholy unique to new york. a joy, too.

ultimately, i don’t think i will be moving to new york any time soon. after all, i’m a writer, and there is nothing more to write about new york. i think there is more to write about los angeles, but even if there isn’t, it’s home.

Photos by me.