Millions live high, where it's cool and rather quiet, except for the soothing and varied whistles of the boats and an occasional fire or police siren.
You don't have to be sociable with heterogeneous strangers or even your party-wall neighbors, whom you seldom know on sight.
If you want to sail, there are two magnificent rivers, the broad and sporting Sound and the most breath-stopping harbor on earth.
If you want mountains, you go by magic elevators to the observatories in the Chrysler Building, Radio City or the Empire State, where you get a magnificent view as soon as the suicides clear the railings.
There are, even in mid-July, two score legitimate theatres offering the great hits, for shows that survive into this period are all lusty and hardy. Within easy drives are locality playhouses with several other sturdy attractions, and "straw hat" try-out and revival productions. You have a wide choice of concerts, indoor and outdoor opera, a dozen swanky or swift cabarets and a hundred minor ones.
There are three big-league baseball teams within a $1.50 taxi hop from Times Square, always one and often two at home, all exciting, usually at least one out in front.
There are a half-dozen boxing shows each week, al-fresco or, like most of the burg, air-conditioned.
If you would attend churches, we have some of the finest and most famous cathedrals of all faiths and creeds.
Half the saloons are equipped with television, and for the price of a beer you can see and hear leading sports and other biff-bang affairs as they are proceeding.
There are eating places from sub-sub basements to the 85th floor, and from automats where you slip in a coin and get back a hot hamburger to the Stork and El Morocco, where you won't be allowed in, which is just as well for your bank roll.