There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. […] Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.

E.B. White, Here is New York

My parents (both originally from the Midwest) moved to New York in 1968, and I was born in 1971. When I first read this passage, years ago now, I finally started to understand how my parents’ New York was different from my own—and that New York was important to them in a way that I think I can never entirely understand.

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