REASON TO LOVE NEW YORK

THERE'S NOT MUCH in New York that has staying power. Every other day, a new scandal outscandals whatever we were just scandalized by; every few years, a hotter, scarier downtown set emerges; the yoga studio up the block from your apartment that used to be a coffee shop has now become a hybrid drug front and yarn store.

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Sometimes it's like living in whatever the opposite of Groundhog Day is, waking up each morning in a new and unfamiliar city. That makes it a little bit easier to spot the things that have stood the test of time. This year, Saturday Night Live entered its 50th season, still defiantly delirious, still doing sketches that shouldn't resonate further than Hoboken, still helmed by the same guy who, 50 years ago, pitched what one executive called "the worst idea I've ever heard in my life." Dia Art Foundation, a custodian of impossibly high-maintenance modernist art, has also been around for half a century, and so, by the way, has Eli Zabar, the Park Slope Food Coop, and the Hampton Jitney (it's a bus). Maybe more than a city of constant turnover, we're a city selective about what we decide to keep. Here, we've collected "39 Reasons to Love New York Right Now," some of which only flared briefly, and a few that we, as a city, fought to preserve.

1 BECAUSE 'SNL' IS HOW WE TALK WITH AMERICA.