City of immigrants

Sometimes I miss New York

I miss the summer sound of cicadas chirping in the trees when it is so humid that even the air conditioning gives up.

I miss walking the boardwalk from Coney Island to Brighton Beach, where you may share a lunch restaurant with some Russian Mafia, or the side walk with some surly looking Eastern European

I miss the sound and 'whoosh' of the train as it pulls into the subway, the buskers and break dancers in stations and the mariachi band in the cars

I miss the street markets selling fresh fruit and veg and cheap silk scarves, the tight, busy streets of SOHO, even the ludicrousness of Times Square

I miss watching the water taxis from Pier 17 as a gin and tonic or ice cold coke is quaffed to the sounds of music coming from the temporary stage nearby

I miss the strutting Saturday night boys on Christopher Street, and the dead chicken carcasses, and transvestite hookers replaced by posing young things outside the Chelsea nightclubs and bars

I miss the nearby Highline, where families stroll amid freshly tended to flower beds , where once trains traversed

I miss the all night bodegas, the flowers, the diamonds, the clothes, the hotel doormen opening doors and hailing cabs, the crosstown, the uptown. I even miss the downtown, where by the fort, people queue to alight the boats to a Staten Island or over yo Liberty Island

I miss the red, double decker tourist buses passing, the not so glorious Little Italy where you find delicious and cholesterol inducing cannoli, or round the corner to bustling China Town for a bowl of noodles

I miss strolling through the West Village, to Bleeker Street, hand in hand with my wife, stopping for coffee, anywhere but Starbucks,; although they do make good tea

I miss walking along Waverley Place to arch at Washington Square, where students flit between classes, and TV cops chase TV crooks between the traffic. Also close-by Tompkins Park, where once a year, Liza Minnelli look-a-likes vie for stage time with Dolly Parton wigs

I miss the City of immigrants where strangers are friends

Sometimes I miss New York

This is an old photo of two "dudes" taken in 2006 down in Brighton Beach, under the elevated rail track, where the car chase in The French Connection was filmed.