Several years ago, I was reading my latest issue of The New Yorker magazine by the fireplace at the hotel, and a colleague commented that you can take the man out of New York, but not New York out of the man. This may be true. He found it odd that I like keeping up with the happenings in New York via my subscription, while actively avoiding actually going there ever again. How to explain this?
I think New York was a place everyone should live for some period of their lives. It was the only American city where you could get a concentration of culture and the arts that was anywhere near European standards. Manhattan was the finishing school for the common man. That being said, once you’ve had the experience, it was important to separate yourself and live in the real world.
Manhattan was like academia, a closed society very loosely based on reality. It provided you with some good tools for life, but no opportunity to apply them properly until you left. Most of all, staying there robbed you in financial and quality of life terms. You had to work much too hard to earn a lot of money that doesn’t benefit you directly. It remains one of the few places in the world where a six-figure income provides no more than a solid middle-class lifestyle.
Rosemary Clooney sang a piece called "Do You Miss New York?" In my case, the answer is Hell, No!
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