Alison Cherry Books

Middle Grade and Young Adult Author of Red, For Real, and other books.

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A conflicted love letter to New York City

December 5, 2011 By Alison Cherry

Dear New York City,

We need to talk about our relationship.

Someone very wise* once said to me, “New York City is like the hot, bad boyfriend you just can’t leave. Maybe he hits you a little bit, but you just think, ‘Oh, that was probably my fault.'”

CrowdedSubway I’ve let you smack me around for seven years now, New York. We were going to have a casual relationship, just for a year, and then I was going to move on. But you begged me to stay, told me this was where I belonged, and I believed you. And then you started playing games with me. You’d think I’d be used to how you treat me by now, but your abuse just keeps getting weirder, so I never know how to brace myself for the next onslaught.

You seem to have grown tired of sending me the standard bedbug scares, broken boilers, and crowds of tourists blocking the sidewalk. Now you’ve given me a neighbor who gets upset when people “press their microwave buttons too loudly” and another who thinks people are erasing the songs off her CDs and moving the icons around on her computer desktop. You gave me a fifth floor apartment, then took my elevator out of commission for an entire month on the day I was rushed to the ER with a back injury. You let a woman dump a bucket of water onto my head from her fire escape because she thought I was talking too loudly on the street under her apartment. You trapped me outside in Brooklyn DURING A TORNADO. I didn’t even know there could BE tornadoes in Brooklyn until I was huddled in a doorway with my arms over my head, wondering when a tree was going to fall on me.

This morning, to start my Monday off right, you opened up a seat next to me on the subway so a crazy man in a neon blue suit could sit down and scream at me because I was reading a novel, which apparently “rots your brain.” What I should have been reading was psychology and philosophy. He repeated this many, many times, just to make sure it sank in.

THESE THINGS ARE NOT NORMAL, New York City. I should not have to live this way.

Central+park+autumn And then, just when I’m sure you’re trying to drive me out, just when I’ve almost made up my mind to break up with you, you get all sweet. You open a branch of my favorite tea shop INSIDE my favorite bookstore. You set off an unexpected display of fireworks over Central Park when I’m walking past after a hard day at work. You stall my train in a station where a guy in a Cookie Monster costume is playing the xylophone, just so I can have a good long laugh. You bring me museum exhibits on the Muppets, Tim Burton, and Alexander McQueen. You put Alan Rickman on Broadway. When I run out of baking soda at midnight on Christmas Eve, you keep the corner bodega open so I can run out in my pajamas and buy more. In the spring, you make the trees around my apartment blossom so exuberantly it’s almost indecent.

I just don’t know what to do with you, New York City. I love you and I hate you and I just can’t leave you, no matter how hard I try. Please try to be gentle with me. My heart is in your beautiful, infuriating hands.

Ever yours,

Alison

*Very wise person = Agent Holly… who has now moved to LA. Figures.

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Comments

  1. Jeanni says

    December 5, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    Funny post, I could definitely relate. I'm from Brooklyn so I've gotten it all. It's hard to leave, isn't it?

  2. Tim says

    December 5, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    Nicely put. I spent three years working in NYC and living in Hoboken, Crown Heights, and Riverdale over 25 years ago. New York didn't capture my heart but my wife did, so I can't say much against it. Basically NYC is the jerky friend-of-a-friend who introduced me to the love of my life. I feel the urge to visit every once in a while but halfway through the visit I usually remember why I left.

  3. NicoleL says

    December 5, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    OMG a woman dumped a bucket of water on your head?! And you didn't shoot her? Because, you know, everyone who lives in Brooklyn has a gun 🙂

    The weirdest thing about NYC for me is that I always miss things: party on the L train? No pants day? Spidey walking down Broadway? Missed it all.

    Oh, here's one for you. Creepy landlord coming to "fix" things on weekend mornings when my roomate and I were still in our pyjamas. Yuck.

  4. christina says

    December 6, 2011 at 3:34 am

    You had me at Alan Rickman. Now scoot over so I can come visit.

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