"It is a complex miasma of longstanding social and economic gentrification; of people, regular and celebrity, of various races and ethnicities choosing to remain sequestered from one another, except during the hours between 9am and 5pm, or when they get their Chinese food delivered; of hot dog carts parked next to falafel carts parked next to storefront Wendys and Starbucks, creating a wonderfully malodorous assault on one's senses, and possibly killing them; of the media elite and the blogging underclass, and vice versa, of course; of traffic and pigeons and sometime smells of caramel or fudge or swamp gas wafting in from New Jersey; of layoffs at newspapers, TV anchors under layers of makeup and radio reporters acting like the days of the week are 'dress-down Fridays'; of sidewalk vendors selling goods you'd rather not know, or acknowledge, weren't and will never be 'the real thing'; of tall buildings that spit debris onto unwitting pedestrians below, and pedestrians that spit; and, above all, of triumph in love, of love in triumph, of all things ever thought romantic and tragic, right and wrong in the affairs of the heart. That, my child, is Manhattan, a floe of schist in humanity's complex sea, and never, my child, shall we tramp there."
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Fair comment. A well-presented sample of the things I like about Manhattan; as a visitor.
Give New York another century or two, and it should be quite a city - up to London standards even.