There is wonderful variety of places to eat or shop, and though the most successful of such places are likely to touristy hybrid compromises, they too have genuine roots.Other American cities have ethnic turfs jealously defended, but not, I think, such an admixture of groups, thrown together in such jarring juxtapositions.In the same way, avenues of high-rise luxury in New York are never far from poverty and mean streets.The sadness and fortitude of New York must be celebrated, along with its treasures of art and music.The combination is unstable; it produces friction, or an uneasy forbearance that sometimes becomes a real toleration.Loving and hating New York becomes a matter of alternating moods, often in the same day.The place constantly exasperates, at times exhilarates.To me it is the city of unavoidable experience.Living there, one has the reassurance of steadily confronting life.
