Thoughts On a Year of Living in NYC

Just under a year ago, Sean, Adele, and I were on the Metro North going up to Beacon, NY for a Saturday trip. Sean was reading E.B. White’s book of essays and at one point he perked up and told Adele and I we had to hear this quote:

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter–the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last–the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company. ” From E.B. White’s “Here is New York”

Ever since Sean read that snippet out loud, it’s stuck with me. Like so many folks, getting to New York was always such a huge goal of mine– a “final destination” as White calls it. I don’t know how this city can have such a magical magnetism with its crowded subways, smelly streets, and general surface-level disgustingness… But it does. Looking back on a year and one month of living in this city, it’s so funny to think about how that “final destination” enamored feeling has driven us to be so curious that we’ve voraciously consumed the sites and areas of NY. There’s just so much to explore. And while I’ve always been one to love and explore the place I’m in, NYC is just another level. It’s the motherload.

Day 1 at our old apartment, may she always be warm and tiny in our hearts and memories. 😉

While many places we’ve found came from a friend’s recommendation, a lot of the things we’ve discovered actually came from the website Atlas Obscura. It’s there we found things like the MTA transit museum and Sleepy Hollow.

Over the next year, I’d like to start writing little cheapskate guides to share the places we’ve been and the things we’ve seen so that other curious wanderers can find their way as well. 🙂

It’s been an incredible year and I can’t wait to see what year two has in store. More adventures, more crafts, and more apartment-decorating!

The beginnings of our new apartment… With some Indiana barn pulleys holding up our lights. 🙂