Dearest New York City,
My heart is bursting with adoration and gratitude for you.
Over a century ago, your welcoming shores embraced my loved ones, giving them dignity, aspiration, and resolve.
You are a bastion of history so gloriously rich and compelling, and you share it with generosity, honor, and pride.
You abound with hopefulness and opportunity.
You are a sensuous tapestry of textures and flavors and scents.
Your luminous skyline forever takes my breath away.
Your whispers and roars were the first meaningful sounds that my child was able to hear.
Your scenery is varied and captivating, from a gritty, sweaty subway station to a majestic view of Central Park from high above with snow falling silently from the winter sky.
Your complex infrastructure is endlessly fascinating.
Your buildings at once miniaturize and empower me.
Your gentle yet ceaseless beckoning inspired me to change the path of my life, and has fostered possibilities heretofore unimaginable.
You have been the gracious host for joyful celebrations with family and friends, for exquisite feasts, for preeminent performances, for enchanting experiences of learning and entertainment, for live laughter every Saturday night—and especially for precious small moments that might easily be forgettable elsewhere, but stay emblazoned in my memory because of you.
You are enthralling, you are disconcerting, you are glamorous, you are disheveled, you are bustling, you are serene, you are cacophonous, you are hushed, you are tantalizing, you are evocative, you are beguiling, you are diverse, you are unflappable.
You are many; you are one.
May you ever stand resolute under the bluest sky, and may you always be a gleaming beacon of freedom and spirit for our country and for our people.
With deepest adulation,
Andrea