New York City’s inimitable sense of its own worth is one of the most important things going for it.
I went to law school in Chicago. I had spent the previous two years — 1995 and 1996 — working as the spokesman for the New York City Parks Department, living in the East Village.
After a month or two in the Windy City, I realized I was tired all the time. At first, I assumed it was the heavy workload — the first year of law school is famous for its brutality. But eventually, I realized it wasn’t the what. It was the where.
I had gotten used to the energy of New York City — that feeling, that electricity that pulsates through the streets, invisible and yet apparent to all. I drew from that vibe. Relied on it. It kept me excited, kept me going, let me work all day and, because I was 23, stay out all night.
And then it was gone, replaced by the gothic buildings and leafy quiet of Hyde Park. Once I was able to put a name and identity to how I felt, I didn’t feel much better. But at least I knew where I was heading next.
I even wrote a poem about it (I still remember it):
Give me pollution and smut
to get me out of this rut
so my blood may flow freely once more.
Grey skies and concrete
to get me back on my feet
and drag my dull life off this floor.
I want bright lights that glare.
Hipsters with flair.
Streets that part to my stride.
Steaks and whiskey at 2.
Oh the life I once knew.
These days, I only feel half alive.
Over the next decade, I found myself in New York but also back in Chicago, in D.C. and even Mexico City for a few months.
I’ve been here full time since February 2007.
In those 17 years, I got to experience raising kids in Manhattan. Building a political consulting business here, then a venture capital fund, then a philanthropic foundation. Running a successful mayoral campaign (Bloomberg in 2009). Running a failed mayoral campaign (Yang in 2021). Opening a bookstore. Making money. Losing money (see bookstore, plus plenty of other screwups). Building a weekend house in the country. Realizing I like the city much better. Writing some books. Teaching at Columbia. Getting divorced. Meeting someone incredible. Traveling the world, always ready to come home. Watching the Mets lose. Life, in other words, good and bad, though mainly good.
And while the path I’ve just detailed is specific to me — I’ve undoubtedly been fortunate in so many ways — the special feel that comes with living here is near-universal.
There’s the New York City all of us who live here know (and frequently love). But there’s also another New York City that the rest of the world knows. And that second version of the city is the secret to its success.
Two New Yorks
Over the period I’ve lived here, the city has both struggled and soared. The pandemic was a low point, but — for me and my friend Howard Wolfson, another veteran of the politics and policy world — it was also a moment of clarity. We had noticed that there was no prize awarded annually to the best book about or set in New York City. As the city went into lockdown and the economy into free fall, we had an idea: to create something called the Gotham Book Prize.
We’d award $50,000 to the best book about or set in this great city published each year. The premise of the prize was obvious. Our underlying reasoning, less so.
The way we saw it, there are two New Yorks. There’s the New York City all of us who live here know (and frequently love): the streets, the subways, the parks, the schools. But there’s also another New York City that the rest of the world knows — the New York they see in movies and on television, hear about in songs, read about in books. And that second version of the city — using movies as the example, from the glorious like “Annie Hall” or “King Kong” or “Saturday Night Fever” to the controversial like “Do The Right Thing” or “Wall Street” or “Kids” to the scary and dystopian from “Taxi Driver” to “Escape From New York” to “Mean Streets” — is the secret to its success.
For as long as a vision of the city as the most dynamic, exciting, upwardly mobile place in the world continues to exist in film, in literature, in music, then the best and the brightest will see that and think to themselves, “I’m gonna live there one day.” The best of those then actually make it here, bringing their talent, their creativity, their determination, their resilience, their excitement with them. Even bleak depictions somehow contribute to the sense that the city is inimitable.
And as long as the most ambitious, talented people in the world — of all backgrounds, at all income levels — want to be here, New York City is going to be okay. We’ll have down periods with higher crime and worse quality of life. We’ll have inadequate infrastructure, too many bad public schools, insane traffic and way too expensive (and not nearly enough) housing.
As long as a vision of the city as the most dynamic, exciting, upwardly mobile place in the world continues to exist in film, in literature, in music, then the best and the brightest will see that and think to themselves, “I’m gonna live there one day.”
But if, every year, filmmakers, musicians, artists and authors keep focusing on our city and keep telling its story to the rest of the world, we’re going to keep attracting the best the world has to offer. They’re going to come here and create — new businesses, new ideas, new art, new organizations, new startups, new everything. Many will fail. But some will succeed. A few will succeed beyond their wildest expectations. And that attracts and employs more talented people, more big thinkers, more artists, more entrepreneurs. They then create and the cycle repeats itself, over and over.
We’ve given out the award for four years now, most recently to Colson Whitehead for his 2023 novel “Crook Manifesto.”
Postpandemic
The city has mainly recovered from COVID, but not entirely. Crime is up a little from prepandemic levels but not wildly so. Quality of life today feels worse between the illegal weed shops government is finally now scrambling to close; and scaffolding that, if stretched linearly, would go from Manhattan to Montreal; and a shoplifting epidemic that means you now have to push a button and wait at CVS for the guy with the key to open a plastic case so you can get deodorant or toothpaste. In some ways, the subways feel scary. Too many of our schools are failing. It’s too hard to build affordable housing. And people haven’t come back to work like they used to, so it feels like the commercial real estate sector is teetering.
But the city has faced hard times before and a visionary leader — Fiorello LaGuardia, Felix Royhatan, Mike Bloomberg — always emerges. That will happen here too, sooner or later. Until then, we just need to keep the dream of New York City — the global image, the notion that it’s just different and better than anywhere else in the world — alive.
I still make it out to Chicago pretty often. I have an office there, lots of friends there. It’s an incredible city — it has everything you could possibly want: great culture, restaurants, architecture, sports teams, universities, museums, music, you name it. And it still makes me tired, not because it’s so demanding — but because it’s not demanding enough.