For years, moving to New York City was my number one dream. I would come on trips here with family every few years and each time the love and passion I had for this concrete city would intensify. My room was decorated with photos of the Empire State Building and Broadway signs. I’d watch Times Square on live webcams late at night when I couldn’t sleep. Not a day went by where I wasn’t wishing that I was walking down the streets of Manhattan. So many times people asked me why I loved the city so much and it was always hard to explain. It’s truly a gut feeling. It’s a fire in your chest. It’s just like being in love. I always tried to put it in words but usually those words fell short. But today, on this snowy and windy day, I am going to try again.
New York City is a place for dreamers. Usually when people in their young 20’s come here it’s for school or even just for a new start. People often think by “dreamers” that I mean actors or artists, but NYC has so much more to offer than that. Dreamers as in people who dream about being lawyers. Dreamers as in people who desire nursing the ill back to health. Dreamers as in people who believe that by coming to New York, wether it be a new city, state or country, that they can achieve their biggest and craziest goals.
I remember the feeling I would get on the plane when I would pass by the skyline before landing. I would look down on the island of Manhattan and smile at how so much life is happening on that stretch of land. I’d become speechless when I would emerge from the subway station in Midtown and see nothing but buildings reaching up for the sky above me. NYC has this magical element to it that leaves you mystified. The way that there is so much chaos around you, yet still held together by some kind of order. Stop lights, walk signs, the ever so helpful grid system. Your senses start to feel like they’re on over drive and you feel like a dog surrounded by new dog butts to sniff(talk about putting feelings into words!). You smell the delicious food being cooked in a truck on the corner. You see the sun reflect off the glass of a 27th floor window on the office building next to you. You hear eight different conversations pass you by as taxis honk endlessly at each other. You taste the cool crisp winter air in the back of your throat. You feel the aura and energy that’s being released from the millions of others who are going about their day.
Often times my favorite way of observing the city is by going up high or sitting low. Although it is touristy, viewing the city from the Top of the Rock at 30 Rockefeller Center (no they did not pay me to promote them) is like no other. I walk around the full 360 roof and take it all in. You can see the whole city from there. Among all of the tourists, I find a bench and I sit and think. I think of how each night all of these lights shine so brightly you can see them from space. I think of how down below me there is somebody who got that promotion. There is somebody walking home from a museum or play date with their kid. There are two people going on a first date. Right next to me on this very roof, there are two people getting engaged. As I said, it’s a city for dreamers. A place where the dancers and actors and photographers and lawyers and doctors and architects and software programers can all come together and live on the same island, all while doing what they love to do. When I’m not up high, I sit on a bench or on the grass in Central Park. I think it’s most beautiful right after fresh snow has painted the ground. It’s somehow quiet, and incredibly pristine. It’s almost as though you have been brought back in time. The city’s history starts to show through and as you walk along in the park you can’t help but feel as though you have been here before. Not just on vacations but in another time. Another decade. Another life.
Times Square is something that as New Yorkers we all try to avoid. But sometimes I put that privileged annoyance aside and remember that I shouldn’t be taking this city for granted. I walk into the burning, raging fire of the LED lights that make night time look like broad day light. I look down the streets at all of the Broadway signs that are more examples of dreams come true. I watch others look in amazement the way that I did when I would visit, and the way that I still do from time to time. It’s so easy to get lost in the routine of living in the city. Of being annoyed at traffic and train delays. Being annoyed at slow walkers. Being annoyed at long lines. We become those annoyed New Yorkers everyone loves to complain about. But what about the times when we stop and smile at a musician playing an instrument in Grand Central Station. Playing for a bustling crowd of people just trying to get where they are going. Playing to everybody, yet nobody at all. The times when snow starts falling down lightly on your head when walking home from school or work. The times when the cement clicks and crackles beneath your shoes when walking back from getting drinks with a friend. The little moments that remind us that we are alive. That we after all those years of dreaming, we are right where we always wanted to be.
New York City may not be for everyone, but for some people NYC is everything. It’s a safe haven. A place to fully and freely be who they are and express themselves. It’s a place of acceptance no matter skin color, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender etc. It’s a place where art flourishes and touches the lives of millions. A place where business deals for companies around the world are made. A place where two kids can grow up in the same neighborhood for their whole life and never have met, but also a place where two strangers from different parts of the world meet and become best friends. NYC is the city that brings you serendipitous moments like running into a friend in a random part of the city or seeing the same woman on the train twice in one week. It’s a city where there is something for everyone and all you have to do is remember to stop and look around.
