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Goodbye Empire State of Mind
How time, distance, and COVID broke the magic spell of New York City.
It might be hard to believe, maybe even sad — but it’s true: In my first 15 years living in New York City, not once did I step foot inside the Empire State Building.
I still haven’t. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to stand at the top and take in the breathtaking view of the naked city with eight million stories, most of them well above ground level. I’ve always figured I’d get around to the 102 that make up the Empire State Building… eventually.
I returned to New York City on September 25, 2019, after 13 years living abroad. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic started shutting down the city the following spring, I’d still yet to walk within 100 meters of the Empire State Building. Would I finally make the pilgrimage before my next increasingly inevitable-seeming departure? That was the question. Time was running out.
As ambulances roared by my apartment on East Houston Street, all day and all night, the city that once had felt so full of possibility had begun to feel like a literal dead end. But to be honest, that didn’t really begin with the pandemic. Although New York had changed in the years I spent away from it, I’d changed considerably more. I’d logged time living on every continent but…
