"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 - 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 (...)."
E.B. White "Here is New York" from Essays of E.B. White
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