IN A NEW YORK MINUTE

"The Smell of Burnt Pretzels and Sabrett Hot Dogs"

    JUNE 17 2004

Being a vocal, loyal fan of the Redskins, Bullets and Redsox at an upstate New York boarding school didn't go over too well with the lads. He hated their teams right back, as any good D.C.- loving boy would but he was badly outnumbered. The Big Apple's teams and in turn, the city had been his nemesis for years and moving to the coast only strengthened that rivalry.

He used to fly People Express in and out of Newark and it was hell. The bus to Port Authority and the cruise to Canal Street was always a fun adventure but he had absolutely revelled in not being a Newyorker.

Seventeen years and a minute later he fell hard.

MISTA? Hello?!
Can you blame him?
Every polish waitress, every Ecuadorian launderer,
Indian Cabdriver, downtown hipster, bodega owner and Yankee Stadium attendee treated him like a king.

Gettheheckouta'ere!
What gives?

The smell of burnt pretzels and Sabrett hot dogs with cars whizzing/honking by; a beautiful day in Central Park and the sun going down right exactly over the West Village. Thirty Irish bars in ten square blocks, thousands of great restaurants and a subway that works.

He gave in.

Seventeen years later he fell in love with a city that never sleeps and it was all over. But it wasn't until he flew back to the coast that evening that he choked-up when he figured it out:
this was a truly great town that had been attacked; it's heart broken just two and a half years before.

Just when he had lost faith in pretty much all of mankind, this good, noble, wounded yet resilient city had given him some hope that America could still be great.



The beautiful woman didn't hurt either.