NYC at Night; Empire State Building
The song ends, “the best that you can do is fall in love…” While it is meant to bring Dudley Moore and Liza Minelli together at the end of “Arthur“, the concept isn’t lost on me as I stand on the balcony of my 15th floor hotel room, overlooking the iconic Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.
New York City is a little bit of everything in 34-square-miles: it’s inspiring, exciting, daunting, sexy, stunning, inviting, disturbing, dream-like and mesmerizing. It can blow a 5-year-old’s mind, as she watches the characters of “The Lion King” come to life before her eyes, or bring out the kid in any adult during the tree lighting in Rockefeller Square every December. New York can be complicated – it can cut a young business owner’s dream in half with 50% less funding or forbid a blind date’s dream of love when the ex walks in the door. It can also be the city where dreams come true.
Dancers pirouette on Broadway, entrepreneurs invest on Wall Street, restaurant owners taste-test in Chelsea, artists inspire in SoHo, students co-habitate in the Upper East Side, historians investigate on Ellis Island, tourists stop and gaze at buildings as if they don’t have tall steel structures where they’re from. Whatever borough you’re in, there’s something new to see, do and feel.
Some cities just ‘fit’ – New York has always been that city for me. As a child, I spent many summers in New York with my family and today, I’m privileged to be able to come back and enjoy the city as an adult. I don’t have to run to Radio City Music Hall for the Rockettes or stand in line at Serephina’s for a cupcake – I’ve done it. I don’t have to ride the escalators in Macy’s Herald Square or step into a new zip code at Saks Fifth Avenue’s shoe department. I don’t need to haggle in Chinatown or snack on street meat. I’ve done all these things – it’s time to hand over the torch to new visitors to New York.
Today, I enjoy New York as a regular. I walk where I need to be, enjoy a night in with room service and a good movie, and spend time meeting my friends for cocktails at some new restaurants in Tribeca, or at old favorites on the Upper West Side. But sometimes at night in New York City, when I remember, I’ll look up and catch the moon casting its spell on the city and I remember why I fell in love with New York to begin with…
I’m not a regular, but I’ve been often enough to know my way around a bit, and my favorite thing to do in NYC is embarrassingly cheesy: I adore the horse-drawn carriage rides in Central Park. Gotta do it every time. Bonus points if my driver is a hot Irishman.
I’ve got to be a part of it…