Big City Of Dreams.

I love to visit New York. Visit. Arts critic Terry Teachout describes the city in which lives and which he loves - giving the reasons I'll stick with visiting:

I've lived in or near Manhattan for close to a quarter-century, yet there are still moments when I catch myself feeling that the life I lead on the Upper West Side can't possibly be real. I was walking back to my apartment one day last week when that sense of improbability swept over me without warning: how on earth did I end up living half a block from Central Park, reviewing Broadway plays for a living and popping into nightclubs and art galleries between deadlines? At various points along the way, I was sure I was going to be a lawyer, a high-school teacher, a jazz musician, and a psychotherapist, and I fully expected to pursue each of these professions within the borders of the Midwestern state where I was born. Instead I wake each morning, climb down from the cozy loft in which I sleep, turn on a small electronic device that in my youth was unimaginable save to science-fiction writers, and spend the day writing about the arts. I don't live in a house, don't own a car, don't have a lawn to mow, don't know any of my neighbors. I am, in short, a New Yorker, living an unreal life in an unreal city: I love it, but I don't quite believe it.

Here's the whole thing.