"The Greatest City in the World " a New York City Travel Page by mrdarius

Growing up in the shadow of the greatest city in the world was interesting. Especially since I grew up in a town with no sidewalks. When I was little and I told people from Canada that I was from New York, a lot of times they would ask if I carried a gun.

Luckily, today things are different.

The landscape truly is very different in New York City nowadays. Under Guilliani, crime dropped and quality of life shot upwards (I highly recommend reading his book Leadership , by the way).

But the biggest change was September 11. It affected the world, and especially New Yorkers in so many ways. The sheer mass number of loss of lives is devastating. The heroism displayed on that day and since have been truly impressive. As I write this, you can still go to Ground Zero and see construction workers rebuilding the site.

I have visited the site several times since that September, but the most memorable was my first time, in December 2001. The enormity of the disaster was unfathomable. I remember looking at the towers in May 2001 and placing my hand on one of them, thinking how indestructible they were. Now every time I walk down a cross-street and look over, it is strange to see the sky without the towers to fill in the space.

When I went in June 2003, there was a guy stading around handing out leaflets on the history of the towers and telling groups of children about what the towers used to be like and how tall they were. "Don't let their history be a mystery," he kept saying. The picture here is a view from the towers circa 1995.

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Satellite view of NYC. Forget where I got it.

NOW

I am glad to be back in New York, and I am proud to say that I truly do love New York - the greatest city in the world.

Now that you've gotten through all the sappy boring stuff, I hope you enjoy my page. I will try to make most of the tips on here off-the-beaten-path-ish, as I'm sure there are many better pages with must-see stuff for NYC.