URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, "I beg your pardon," and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.
Growing up in New York, I was sort of shocked when I realized that my children are Californians. They are 14 years old, and I explain to them frequently that they will never realize the glory of a snow day. You wake up and the world says, 'Oops, it's too much fun to go to school, you've got to stay home and deal with the snow!'
For my family and Howard's partner, who is like family, for 10 years we were in a state of shock. It takes time to appreciate fully what was going on then. That's connected because post-9/11 New York is so completely different from the way it was and the counterculture movement going on before then was so remarkable; I think people are appreciating it a lot more now.
Some 2,800 Americans went to Spain [during the Spanish Civil War], and it was, by far, the largest number of Americans before or since who've ever joined somebody else's civil war. I think they were primarily people who were deeply alarmed by the menace of fascism. They saw this on the horizon. I quote one volunteer, Maury Colow of New York, who said, "for us it was never Franco, it was always Hitler."
In the, uh, '30s and '40s, the Brill Building was the hub of, uh, musical activity in Tin Pan Alley in New York City. I believe Irving Berlin was there, and uh, and everything just centered around there.
Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only "Four Hundred" people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen - the census taker - and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the "Four Million.
I remember watching Ring of Honor as a fan, going to shows in Philadelphia and New York, and I loved the guys. I thought these are some of the best wrestlers in the world, if not THE best.
My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.
Once I was in New York, I completely had no interest for a long time in what happened in China because I had been through so much. Seeing my father's life struggle and so many whole generations lose their potential or possibility in their lives. Just being pushed into this political struggle and the damage done not only to their lives but their relatives.
In New York, the impact of these concentrated superskyscrapers on street scale and sunlight, on the city's aniquated support systems, circulation, and infrastructure, on its already tenuous livability, overrides any aesthetic. ... Art becomes worthless in a city brutalized by overdevelopment.