Reasons To Love New York

For this, our 14th annual “Reasons to Love New York,” all the reasons are places—some timeless, some odd (the underbelly of a Washington Heights pool?), some secret, some soothing, some technically illegal to occupy, but each beloved by the people who chose them. If we all carry a customized map of the city in our minds, consider this a chance to add a few new pins to yours.

- Jorge Colombo

Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site

For good and bad, New York is notoriously unsentimental when it comes to preserving historic sites (there is no past or future in the city, only an unending transactional present: Case in point, who needs a museum devoted to Andy Warhol’s Factory in Union Square when that same space could accommodate a Petco?). My favorite exception is the brownstone on East 20th Street devoted to the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt (technically, the house is a re-creation from 1923, the original demolished in 1916, even furthering the unlikelihood of its survival). Roosevelt isn’t my favorite president, and I have a firm policy against exotic taxidermy, but this inconspicuous jewel of a museum is such a beautiful, sober sanctuary with its displays of bewildering artifacts. In my wilder 20s, when I lived in Gramercy, I would often take dates there—the small, delicate rooms encouraged intimacy, and yet what weirdo on my level would enjoy the case displaying the manuscript in Roosevelt’s pocket that slowed an assassin’s bullet? —christopher bollen, writer

“A Really Weird Street, Around 191st.”

It’s like the city planners who were taking over this Dutch farmland just fucking threw their hands up, because there is a building on the side of it—I want to say it’s Hillside Avenue, but I know that’s not right. I’m going to find a picture of it [pulls phone out of pocket]. But it’s this crazy building, and we actually used it as the basis for the poster for In the Heights.

If I Google Map, I’ll find it. Hold on. I like walking up this hill. It used to be where my grandmother’s senior center was. Okay, Street View—Fairview! Fairview Avenue!