Every “Goodbye to New York” essay includes a list of complaints about the city that are not a secret. There’s a lot of people, the subways are a real scandal, rent is too high, and everyone is trying so hard—yes, we know; they put these things on the tourism campaigns. It’s sort of the whole thing. Many essays about leaving are about the huge gulf between the romantic ideal of the city and the gross reality. As someone who has only a passing interest in acknowledging reality, I can understand this. But the question comes, for the New Yorker, for the citizen, for the participant, are the things
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