That's why New York's my home

In a supremely dorky move (or a supremely frugal one, or possibly both) I found myself checking out lots of cds from the Visalia public library this summer. I had a great time loading them on to my computer and bolstering certain genres. Mostly I found some wonderful classical music, but a compilation I stumbled upon called "New York Songs" seemed like just the thing to pysch me up for my upcoming move. It's a great cd, full of older, classic songs that celebrate my new locale. In one of my favorites, Sammy Davis Jr. compares New York to Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Hollywood, and notes that although other cities all have their charms, New York trounces all of them. The chorus goes, "That's why New York's my home, let me never leave it, New York's my home sweet home."

I find myself making similar comparisons as I ride the incomparable Bolt Bus (clean, spacious, and equipped with wireless Internet!) back to NYC after a wonderful few days in Boston. I've always liked Boston, and was disappointed that my search for potential grad. schools this time last year didn't turn up any I was interested in around the Boston area. It would have been fun, I thought, to live there for a while. Now that I'm settled in New York and have visited Boston a few times, I've concluded that New York was absolutely the better choice.

While New York has its snobby areas, you can always find a gritty character or two even on Fifth Avenue or the Upper East Side, evening things out and making you feel a little better about not being dressed to the nines. Obviously, Boston is a diverse city and has its rough neighborhoods just like New York does. But Boston seems to be more segmented in that certain types of people seem to stick around certain parts of town almost exclusively. Some people might cite that as a boon, but I happen to like a little variety when I people-watch. New Yorkers can be pretentious, true, but in a more worldly way than Bostonians, somehow, which I find far more appealing. And in Boston, you can't pass the time you spend waiting for the T counting rats on the tracks because there aren't any (rats, not tracks), making the subway a far superior mode of transportation despite the grime. Boston is colder and grayer than New York, and I use that phrase to describe both the weather and the general demeanor of the people I encounter there. Some of my dearest friends are native Bostonians, but I'm beginning to suspect that they are exceptions.

I have to agree with Sammy's parting words: "So save your money, save your railroad fare, 'cause when you leave New York, you don't go anywhere."