The smell of street cart hotdogs wafts through the air as hoards of bustling, cloat-clad individuals speed walk down the streets. Today is overcast with cirrus, grey clouds stuffing the sky. The tired metal and glass skyscrapers stretch to touch the clouds as a slight rain begins to fall. I love New York City! The honk and hum of the traffic as people yell derogatory exemplatives out car windows accompanied by not-so-friendly gestures.
Waif-like models trot down the street in their frighteningly sharp stilettos, more than able to gouge a wound if necessary. This place isn’t a city, it’s an organ pumping blood and energy into the outermost regions and circulating back again. The streets are the veins which carry the energy through every nook and cranny of this massive region of the country.
The truth is, I’ve never been to New York City. More or less, I’m obsessed with every Broadway show ever created (okay, minus Shrek the Musical), seen Home Alone: 2 and You’ve Got Mail more times than I can count, and dress like the suave, sophisticated girls of the Upper East Side, channeling a Gossip Girl-esque mantra. I live, eat, and breathe the life a true New Yorker who, pardon the expression, like the city, “never sleeps”.
My diet consists of lattes and food from every region of the globe. My idea of nature watching is gazing at the lone tree planted across from my flat on 42nd Street. While some people prefer to shop at whatever shop provides the best quality for the cheapest price, I find comfort and consolation at Macy’s, which smells pleasantly of fresh cashmere and perfumes from every designer known to man. My entire life, I’ve never missed a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, parking my bottom in front of any available TV screen every November.
Oh, and Broadway in Bryant Park! Where, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to hear Idina Menzel belt out an infamous Broadway ballad or Matthew Morrison croon a somewhat-known classic song or a fresh Great White Way hit.
And fashion week! Where do I even begin? The plethora of white tents scattered through the parks, the eccentric fashion critics decked out in what nobody else would dare to wear, overworked and overstressed assistants pushing coffee carafes and clothing racks through the streets, or the dozens of A-list celebrities packing the front rows of Lanvin, Erin Featherston, Alexander McQueen, Baby Phat, Betsey Johnson, Marc Jabobs, and countless others.
Of course Christmas isn’t an event to forget either! Ice Skating in Rockefeller Center, the high-kicking beauties known across the world as the Radio City Rockets, and the elaborate window displays of some of the most famous department chains in the world.
I feel like I’ve been a New York girl my whole life, though I live thousands of miles away. Street food and unique sidewalk vendors intrigue me more than what would normally draw the average teenager. Taking a stroll through Central Park sounds simply divine and who knows? Maybe I’ll even catch a glimpse of Madonna training on her pre-tour workout?
New York is the mother ship which I think, isn’t as far away as it seems.