Beautifully Intoxicating

It's a recurring feeling, a vision, thoughts… right on 57 East 57th Street: the energy that strangely emanates when I visit this monster of a place. For a city that stands for many things I don't agree with, it also vibrates with this energy, the energy of possibilities; it intoxicates the mind. Industriousness. Power. Beauty. Culture.

I remember walking west toward Fifth Avenue; you can hear the noise, the street coming to life, more and more alive. A few blocks away, there's Central Park.

For all the love and hate New York City might inspire, there's no denying it. It's beautifully intoxicating. A city that, by definition, is not for me, because I generally do not like cities. It's a city of potential dreams. It's a city that I can only describe as grand … raw and unfiltered.

From the streets around 57th Street to the paths inside Central Park, the city imposes on me a stark tremor: the world is so much bigger than most of us allow ourselves to imagine, and after all my travels, this is the only place that reminds me. It's not calm, nor humble, nor always beautiful in the conventional sense. The energy is something else.

I tend to wonder if this is why New York feels so connected to business and ambition. From Ellis Island to Wall Street, Fifth Avenue, and the five boroughs; from the place that Robert Moses built to every image of true power. People can say whatever they want, but like it or not, there's no other place like it. New York puts you so close to money, talent, culture, history, influence, and competition. The city makes possibility visible, palpable, and visceral. It shows you. You feel it. But it does not hand any of it to you.