NYC in 8 hours:

The city in which I was born and raised is

– still super exciting — best in the world in so many dimensions. Whatever you love, you’ll find high level talent there.
– still the city of beginning. At the drop of the hat, you can have a clean slate among a new set of interesting, worldly, talented people. (pro tip:if you’re tired of beginnings and want middles or ends, get the hell out)
– still super frustrating — I paid thirty dollars twice, for parking < 2 hrs. - still puts you at the mercy of unreasonable and predatory bureaucrats. - Pongal on Lex is still the best Indian food in the world, and an example of perfect service -- everything you want and nothing you don't. - Rosa's Pizza on 69th Street in Queens is still the best pizza in the world. We called it Rosa's II because there was another Rosa's Pizza on Grand Avenue at the time of their scandalous opening in the late 80s. Loved sharing it with my family. Three surprises: - The Orpheum is ***still*** showing "Stomp"??? (I remember saying the same thing about "Little Shop of Horrors", and noticing when Stomp finally showed up . . . twentyish years ago. - Saint George's Ukrainian Church was having mass in English! Broader appeal. Makes perfect sense. The icons were extremely familiar. I spent hours of my youth studying them while listening to masses which I didn't understand. Long, agonizing hours measured in impatient child time. Also: I lit candles to remember departed relatives -- they have a push button system in pace of real candles. Somehow, it does not appear in poor taste. - Though I've been back many times since adulthood, the streets, houses and hills in Woodside/Maspeth Queens still seem much smaller than they were. - An old Army buddy with whom I was delighted to cross paths said that in Williamsburg, there really is a training academy where leftists learn some weak perverted version of hand to hand combat. These psychopaths are really going all the way with their delusions. They have it completely, and dangerously backwards. It was not a lack of leftist violence that accompanied the rise of fascism, but an excess that precipitated it. You have to look beyond the sanitized, popular versions of history to see this, but once you do, it's obvious. So please tell your radical leftists friends -- be careful what you start.