Basically, the deal goes like this: the current issue of New York Magazine features an article called "My New York" (You can check it out at www.newyorkmag.com). Various celebrities from all over pick a location that encompasses New York for them. A place that has a strong memory (or series of memories) and has come to mean something significant in their lives. That place is their New York. For PJ Harvey it's Summerstage. Mel Brooks chose Lincoln Center. Moby's is the Mudd Club, Kurt Vonnegut decided on the Algonquin Hotel, and Chuck Schumer is Marine Park.

So I am curious. What is your New York place? What locale means the most to you, and why? I don't want anything too intimate or personal, but you should be able to say something that gives some idea of why... the point is to create a psychic map of the city, outlined by memories instead of tourist traps. (Maybe I've been reading too much Sandman.)

Josh Loh:
The rowing lake in Central Park, by the Natural History Museum. Surrounded by trees, and buildings that tower above the trees, then walking across the street into the stony expanse of old bones and glass that is the American Museum of Natural History.

I love the feeling I get from the place; that it's a borderland between new city and old forest, seeing the skyscrapers rising above the leaves and grass, between different worlds, if you like: the bustle of the city takes a step back when you cross the line into the park. The Natural History Museum carries the same feeling with it, the permanence of the exhibits, the items that have lasted two thousand years and more, sitting out the next thousand years in peace and quiet. Good things happen to me there: I feel like a kid again, I can run around and forget things that drag me down. I remember only the good things there; freedom, wonder, a kiss on the subway platform from an unexpected person. It's a liminal space. The Romans didn't like 'em, but they were fuddy-duddies. Unpredictability and permanence, all wrapped up in a neat little package.

Sonam Z Adinolf-Dinnerstein:
Hmmm. 2 places, maybe three. The Japanese Garden in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. For the first 7 1/2 years of my life, I lived on Eastern Parkway, across the street from the Brooklyn Museum. Across the street and down a little was the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. That was my backyard. I especially liked the Japanese garden, because it had a lake, with pine trees, and, most important stone foxes. Outside the gazebo, their sat a pair of stone foxes, and I used to love sitting on them, hugging them, feeling the cool stone on my cheek. I haven't been back there in over ten years, but when I think of coming home to NYC, that's what I think of.

That, and also the museums, which were the other places I grew up. My favorites were the Brooklyn Museum, for their large number of real _Rooms_ taken from houses (fireplaces were my favorite), the Arms and Armour at the Met, and the Gems and Minerals and Dinosaurs at the Natural History. (They have totally screwed up the Dinosaurs by the way. There used to be something like two dozen full, assembled skeletons in the exhibit. Then they closed it for something like 5 years for renovation, and when they re-open it, they had, I think ONE skeleton, and a bunch of stupid information kiosks). My mother took me to each of these places at least once every week or so. I need to find time to start going again. Anyway, that's what I think of when I think of New York City.

Robert McGowan:
When I think about New York, I think about an attitude, not a place. Actually, it's lots of different attitudes, from Punk to Skater to Preppy. When I think of Manhattan, however, downtown always comes to mind first, followed right away by midtown. The one place I can think of that wraps it all up is Roseland Ballroom: a crowd filled with every attitude in New York in a downtown-like club set smack in the middle of the busiest section of Midtown- just a short walk off Times Square.

I'm sure anyone who follows these kinds of things has found out by now that Roseland is being shut down on New Year's and turned into a parking garage in 2001, leaving music fans asking where their favorite performers are going to book concerts...those acts too big for downtown clubs and too small for full-sized arenas.

Personally, Roseland was my favorite club in New York...the place I saw my first concert (Sugar Ray, if you're interested) and some of my favorite artists (Garbage, System of a Down). No place in New York will ever be quite like it.

Ed Chang:
5th Ave.

I've had a lot of misadventures there.

Daniel Rosengart:
Difficult question. Many of my experiences in New York that define the city for me involving walking. From my father's house to my mother's, for instance. The trip takes me over the bridge, by Stuy and through Chinatown. My stepbrother from LA is in town, and when I take walks with him he tells me that in LA you can only walk a little ways before you hit a highway or just residentials. He says that everyone in LA drives everywhere. I don't think I could survive that.

If I had to choose one place though, and I have no doubt that this would have been different two months ago and will be different two months from now, I would have to pick Washington Square Park. I've been going there maybe two or three times a month, the past four or five months ( I know, that's not much, but I live a boring life). I saw A Midsummer Night's Dream performed there, I've watched the people playing chess and tried to understand, I've been asked to buy pot about 10,000 times. It's amazing to find a place so constantly filled with something interesting. I know that there are other places in New York which have this, Central Park etc., but Washington Square Park is so untainted with tourist population that, well I like it there.

Anyway, I've all ready put in more work into this survey than all the others I've done combined so I think I'll cut my losses now.

Max Beckler:
I have two places in mind. One of them isn't in NY proper, but we all know that NJ is just a smelly suburb of NYC, so it's okay.

The first is the Staten Island Ferry. The return trip, heading to NYC, when you can see the entire skyline of lower Manhattan head-on, and all the looming corporate businesses are right there, and the whole place just screams of power, and of vitae. And you know that you are about to plunge into it, and be dwarfed by the buildings, and the people, and the power of the place.

The second is right after/before getting off/on the NJ Turnpike, heading to/from the Lincoln Tunnel. When you have the entirety of Manhattan off to your side (left side if you are returning, iirc), and you can see the various districts, and the skyline, and especially at sunset, when the sunlight is reflecting off of the taller buildings, and the whole place appears to be on fire. It makes it appear as a place of limitless potential, seeing it all sprawled out in profile like that.

It has much more with the idea of 'returning' to the city, for me. Even the Amtrak train, coming down from up north is pretty. Not as pretty, and I haven't been on it nearly as often, but it is still a wonderful ride.

Danielle Sucher:
I can't decide on just one place that is New York for me. I love NY precisely because it can't be defined by a single place or feeling. I love the density of it. I love its hugeness. So here are three examples, that strike me the most tonight.

One place that is NY for me is the Brooklyn Bridge. I've walked over it with Mike so many times, in the rain, and that's been a huge part of my life. My last day at Stuy, I got up early to walk over the bridge to get to school, one last symbolic walk into the city, into high school. I've stood on the bridge and stared at the water for hours, listening to people pass by behind me, and watching the waves beneath us all. Water is a strong thing for me. Large bodies of water calm me, make me feel at peace more than most other things, and from the bridge was the best view of the river I knew of.

Another very strong NY place for me is, actually, wherever Ariana is. I remember the first time I went to see RHPS. We went together, told our parents various stories about where we meant to sleep over for the night, and left. It was my first real adventure of any sort. I remember it raining, and walking down one of those streets where the sidewalk is full of tiny chips of mica that glitter like stars in the streetlights under the water flowing over them and down into the streets. I remember Ariana in ripped fishnets dancing and twirling in the rain over the shining sidewalk, in the night, when we didn't know where we meant to sleep that night. Ariana, dancing like that, is always what comes to mind for me at the phrase 'city girl'. And isn't the city wherever the city girl happens to be?

There used to be an Ozzy's in Brooklyn Heights, right on Montague St. Now only the Park Slope one is left, I believe. But I always liked the one on Montague best, though its coffee wasn't quite as good. But I'd go there, no matter the season or temperature, and order a mocha (sometimes iced). I'd take my drink, and a notebook and a Pilot Precise v7 Fine (sometimes, when I was feeling really obsessive, the v5 Extra Fine), and go through their main room with all the small teapots and out the book. There was a terrace there, with shoddy porch furniture, but it was wonderful. Me and my mocha and my writing and ants that were black on both ends and red in the middle, surrounded on all sides by tall brownstones. NY for me is also about being alone, surrounded by the sheer massiveness of it all. And that terrace is where that feeling was always very strong.

That's my New York City. It's my calm spot. My dancing moment. My sense of perspective. I know I got kinda carried away with this, but I'm still in Bumblefuck, Maryland, and really missing it right now. I'm sure you'll all understand that feeling.

Joseph Weiss:
NY places... I worked some of these into an essay for one of the many classes I proved myself inept in.

The view from the BQE just underneath the promenade in Brooklyn Heights, with Manhattan outlined, and the sun glinting off the buildings. It lacks the aggressive feel of the view from the Staten Island ferry - there the city comes at you head on like a huge, blunt spear - but from the BQE you can see the traffic and the open ports, as well as the skyscrapers. The city alive, and lounging in the sun.

The pond in Hudson River park south of the Marina, north of Stuy. Two poems inscribed in the granite, water plants in underwater pots, a waterfall, the occasional ducks. Every time I ran, I took a little detour over there to balance on the rim. I remember sitting on the same spot, watching the battleships on memorial day.

Stuy in general. I got really nostalgic there this Friday, more so than the past couple of years. It was a good place, but I was always the same person. I know there was no idyllic life I once had there and have since lost, but even when I felt busy, useless, stupid, or alone there was at least no panic. Which is odd considering the reputation. I went there and learned despite classes, and there was all the time in the world.

Stuy in specific. I remember my favorite stairwells, the ones with the acoustics of a cathedral, and sitting there playing guitar, I heard the swells of echoes and shouts at the time of the bells.

The abrupt changes in life caused by gym - the pool in swim gym, with the diving board and its smell, or running along the water in the snow, then just... class. It felt strange to just be sitting there. I felt like a veteran, as if I'd done something no one else had, something so alien to the desk and the textbook.

The back of the school library, by the window, but only if nobody else was there first.

The field behind Stuy, in Hudson River Park. Its unbelievable winds. For at least a year I played frisbee there with Jon, and there was one day when we got an ultimate game going with these two other guys, and completely hustled them. Cadman Plaza. Every Friday I went there for ultimate games with the St Anners. I remember the first time I'd ever played, when I just felt confused. I remember a forehand from Rick that I blocked with my arm, and the numbness spreading, Naeem leaping over my head or streaking through a clump of little kids and still getting the disc, Josh suddenly sprinting out of nowhere to knock down a disc with a war cry, me racing Josh in the end zone and almost running into a passerby who said, "nice catch." I remember getting hit in the face, and splashing into puddles, and choking on the constant dust from the dirt field with brief patches of grass on the edges like a balding man with a failed combover. When it rained the middle of the field flooded like a lake. Once I took a stick and some string and pretended to be fishing.

The Brooklyn Bridge, with the exhaust fumes from the cars and the bikers zooming and the sound of the planks under my feet.

The sections of sidewalk with glass mixed into the concrete. I know some of it's on fifth avenue in midtown.

This one stained glass painting in the Met, in an open section near a big window looking out at Central Park.

Mott Street, and the sloped tiny street between it and the park with the red chinese donut stand and a little church that had old white guys coming out of it.

A tiny tea shop somewhere around Bowery where I stepped in out of the rain sometime last year, drinking tea and talking to the old Chinese lady behind the counter for at least an hour. She had two kids in school, and she worried that in America, she's not much of an influence on their lives. The other customers were all old Chinese men, and they emanated a sort of grumbling, approving murmur when I asked for har kow. I still haven't found this place again. Prospect Park at dusk, in the summer. The bats are everywhere.

The rock formations in Central Park. They seemed so big when I was seven.

Danielle's basement, with the pool table and the aromatic smell of catshit.

North American Mammals in AMNH. I tried to draw my favorite scenes again and again when I was little. The wolves leaping forward out of the exhibit, the grizzly (or was it Kodiak?) bears with the painted wooden salmon, the lynx with the snowshoe hare hiding by a bush, and the section off to the side with the smaller ringtails, weasels, and skunks. In the sea area, the blue whale hanging from the ceiling. That place, and the gem room, were always mysterious and foreboding.

Judson Street Church at open mike night, by Washington Square Park. I don't even know if it's still around.

The D train. (Forgive me, the local Q.) It's horrible, and usually crowded, and the heating is erratic. But there are chasidim, Mexicans, Japanese tourists and hindus, and the conductor who says, "transfer to the Looooooooooong Island Railroad," at Atlantic. The D train takes me home.