The City That Never Sleeps

I’ll never forget that day when I first set foot on New York City. It was pouring when I got there but the streets were still covered with rivers of people who kept their course as if it were any other day. Once it stopped pouring I joined the crowds on the street and my eyes made a failed attempt to process the images fast enough. Buildings, cars, crowds. I wanted to be everywhere, be everyone; I wanted to see the city through its 15 million eyes.

I traveled through the city’s veins only to find there is as much life beneath the surface as there is crawling on its concrete skin. Trains came and went, barely stopping to release the crowds building inside of them. I noticed people walked straight, deaf to the music pouring from the walls, blind to the hundreds of people circling them. You could find anyone and no one at a place like that. So I got lost in the crowd, as you should always do when you visit somewhere new, and followed the people to the intersection of Broadway and 42nd street.

Before I stepped out of the station I couldn't to wrap my head around the fact that it was still night time; the only thing I’d seen shine so bright was the sun. But that’s what the eyes of 15 million people saw every day in the sky: no sun, but no night. Times Square created a day of its own, because the people here never had enough, they always needed more. More light, more shopping, more drinks, more.
I walked onto the street and just stood there gazing, smelling, listening. People around were looking up, while hundreds of arms held phones in the air; friendly superheroes were swarming the crowds and one brave man stood shirt-less in spandex shorts holding a boom box in the 30 degree weather (Fahrenheit off course). The smells of sewage and hot-dogs paced around corner by the food carts, not bothered to fight for the spot; they were used to each other. In the midst of it all, I just heard the roar of the city’s heart, beating faster and faster, louder as the night went by.

It was then that I realized this city wasn't alive; it was on drugs, the good stuff.