New York, It's A Hell Of A Town

Today, I read a blog that was about becoming a real New Yorker....Monkeys In My Pants

So, I was thinking about this on the A train home...

When do you become a real New Yorker?

My family landed here at Ellis Island in the 1870's and stayed a couple of years before heading by boat to New Orleans, so, I guess I could claim grandfather status... then, there are the great-Aunts who returned in 1890 to live, and start families...can I piggyback on their resident status?

I became a New Yorker when I stepped off the plane the first time in January of this year. The first breath of air I took, the first rat that I saw when it ran into the luggage area at JFK, the first subway crazy who played his version of You Light Up My Life with a comb and tissue paper made me a New Yorker.

I live on neighborhood coffee, I'm polite on the subway, because I'm polite everywhere. I live and breathe this place.

It's not how long you live here, it's how you absorb the City. This is a place that has welcomed new comers from the beginning... remember that big statue in the harbour? You either are or you aren't a New Yorker. It's in you or it isn't.

New Orleans will always be my heart...New York is my soul.