1st year Report Card

Over a yr in NY now - submitted below, my take on "The City (..so nice, its spelt twice; New York, New York" - in case, you missed the 1st time I threw that quote out - Al Pacino in Devil's Advocate):

What amazes me: subways have beeen around for 101 yrs? They haven't changed much since, have they? :) If you get a chance, check out the obsolete switching mechanism at the W4 station, F line, platform end - whoaaa..

What still amazes me: forgive me for being trite - the diversity - more than being a melting pot, its a place where you can maintain your own identity, without trying too hard to fit in.

What amuses me: the number of grumbling single people living in a City culture which encourages being single (people stay single in NY only because they *want* to). NY claims to have 1.8 million single women to 1.4 million single men. As I like to extrapolate, if I was the last single guy in the City.. :) ..I'd have 400,001 women to choose from!

What I'd wish was different: cleaner? NY is the 2nd dirtiest city in the US..behind Chicago..

What I admire most: parks in NY - for an island so small, supporting that many people, with such a high density, to make the effort to make sure there are enough parks and greenery around talks volumes about planning. I'd love it if powers-to-be in Bangalore keeps like this in mind as it goes about merrily expanding at a maniacal pace right now.

What I've enjoyed most culturally: Indie movies* - have gone berserk in the last year. Top pick would definitely have to be Born Into Brothels, with Old Boy, Black Friday, & I Heart Huckabees right up there.

What I want to do more of: Off-broadway theater and indie music concerts - nothing like the live thing. Any day, prefer theater to movies - should get plugged into this a lot more - looking for like-minded people.

Favorite NY spot: Union Square - to stand there in the middle and look around, gives me the goose bumps - its my "can you believe you are actually in NY" spot.

Top did-you-know about NY: the breadth of Manhattan is just 2 miles - 2 miles!! That's it! And the length is 13 mi - still not much..

Favorite quote: NY is like a yarn of wool - one wonders how something that is wound up in so many different ways stays put as one ball. Think I read this in some Park Slope newsletter. I can also think of so many things that are so wrong about Gotham City, infrastructurally and otherwise, but it keeps sprinting along somehow..

Favorite Personal Quote: (which I often emplot to annoy people in other parts of the country) Every city is a wannabe (and gonnabe) New York; the latter gonnabe bit - when any city "advances" this much, I believe it will look something like this.

What next: move from wonderful Park Slope, Brooklyn to New York, New York

* - to digress, what qualifies for "indie movies" - anything that includes people doing lots of drugs, tons of sex, brooding a lot qualifies for decent indie movie; unless of course, its foreign. If its foreign, its got to be great, no questions :)