Love Affair ... with NYC

I love and hate this place. On any given day you will find me relishing in the fact that I live in the "greatest place on earth" while cursing the tourists, cost of living, inability to get a cab, and weather. Sure, it would be easier to live almost anywhere else. Have a car to go to the grocery store with. Have space in your apartment... but no other place has a beat the way that Manhattan does.

When I was younger, my grandmother would take me into the city every six months or so for shopping or a broadway show. She still lives in NYC, although in the "always getting trendier" Brooklyn, and has always had a great love for the way Manhattan makes her feel. She once said to me, "NYC has a beat, a pulse, it's alive, and that is why I love spending time here." Well, at age 6, or 12, or even 17 I wasn't so sure. It was dirtier than my Long Island suburb I called home. It was loud. And wasn't it dangerous?

I took an internship my junior year of college and chose to live in the NYU dorms to create a more "real-life" experience (but really, I think my parents just wanted me out of the house). That summer, the summer of 2005, was when I found out what my grandmother had spoken about. After I graduated, I took a job and embarked on my first year as a Manhattan resident. I fell in love, whole-heartedly, with this city. There is something happening at any given moment. It has the ability to make you feel lost, but also feel as if you know the entire island. There is nothing like going out at night, the whirlwind of cabs and clubs and restaurants and late night dining. There is a quiet like nowhere else before noon on a Sunday.

Like all of us, I have my personal memories of September 11, 2001. But rather than looking to the past, I want to look forward. So today, on the eleventh anniversary of the greatest tragedy that struck this city and our nation, I am now, more than ever proud to be part of this city. There has never been a city like this, made up of all these different types of people, of people who want to achieve the best and are often beset by adversity. We are bound together by the love of living here, but also by the acknowledgement that making it in NYC is no small feat.