I renewed my love/hate relationship with New York City last weekend when I flew in for a two-day nonprofit board meeting. Even though I spent about as much time on American Airlines’ flying cattle cars as in the meeting, I enjoyed getting back to the Big Apple.
I’m familiar with the city because my corporate career brought me there on business several times a year through the 1970s and 80s. I learned to navigate the subway system and enjoyed prowling around Manhattan. It’s a great place to visit on an expense account.
Arriving in New York would be exciting if I could be teleported directly to, say, Fifth Avenue. Instead, I’m greeted by a scruffy LaGuardia airport and a cab ride through crumbling neighborhoods in gridlock traffic as the meter burns through my wallet. New York’s quaint 
custom of piling garbage bags into Les Miz sidewalk barricades adds to the overall impression of a city strangling itself. The construction scaffolds obstructing traffic on virtually every block prompt me to wonder what New York will be like if they ever finish renovating it.
I see New York through the lens of a passionate city kid. I grew up in an apartment in Chicago, took the subway to college and worked in the Loop for most of my career. I get back there regularly to see friends and family, get a Michigan Avenue fix and go through my checklist of ethnic restaurants – even though the traffic and weather remind me why I retired to Albuquerque.
Working in a big city means that you play in the major leagues and can compete with anybody. I felt this in Chicago, and even more so when I went to New York on business.
New York is a city on steroids in which both the good and bad aspects of urban life are carried to extremes. Yes, traffic is impossible and much of the place is a mess. But there’s more to do, see and eat than practically anyplace. Last weekend’s visit included a great dinner in an old-school Italian restaurant and a pint in an older-school Irish pub with actual Irish servers. A deli near my hotel had sandwiches, panini, Mexican food, Asian food and pizza.
The pulse of street life never stops, so much so that on my first few visits I was reluctant to go back to my hotel room at night for fear that I’d miss something exciting. The urban-anthill press of humanity makes New York a people-watchers paradise and agoraphobe’s nightmare.
I don’t see how anyone can feel self-conscious on the streets of New York. No matter what you do or wear, you probably will not be the most bizarre person within view and passersby won’t bat an eyelash. On one visit to New York a guy walked up to me on the street and screamed incoherently. I screamed back and it felt good.
Times Square is bigger, brighter and more crowded than ever, but when I visited a few summers ago it had been taken over by tourists. Everybody in Times Square appeared to be visiting from either Iowa or China. They were snapping pictures of the buildings, their friends, the cops, their friends with the cops. The place had more character when it was dominated by pimps and hookers in the 70s.
New York is a wonderful place to live if you’re wealthy. A corporate executive and his wife, friends of my parents, moved there in the 70s and loved the city. They lived in a fashionable apartment, did all the cultural stuff, went to restaurants where the maître d’ recognized them and never once rode the subway. For the rest of us, moving to New York to expand your horizons requires downsizing your lifestyle. Most of the people I’ve visited in New York live in apartments the size of my family room.
I really enjoy visiting New York and certainly can appreciate why people live there. But I was happy to get back to Albuquerque Sunday night.