I remember my own life as a small boy, son of Jewish immigrants, in a janitor's flat on Orchard and Stanton streets on the Lower East Side of New York City. My father made pants and doubled as janitor of a tenement - before he made janitoring at $30 a month, plus rooms, a career.
Like surgeons trying to save a life, the conservators and preservers at New York City museums dedicate themselves to ensuring the longevity of works of art for public view.
If the City Council wants to hold the police accountable, it has the subpoena power and oversight responsibility to do so. They don't have the courage to do it.
I got an agent when I needed one, when I had a contract negotiation for the first time. I was doing the Second City E.T.C., and I got invited to audition for the last season, it turns out, of 'In Living Color.'
I'm a big foodie. Hyderabadi cuisine is amazing, and the kind of mutton dishes available at some restaurants in the Old City is incredible.
I developed an interest in the history of the Negro leagues to the point where I visited the museum in Kansas City, Mo., twice and made the museum an integral part of my unheralded 2005 coming-of-age baseball novel, 'Scooter.'
I have a home in Orlando. That's kind of my default 'getaway' city.
The day in 2011 that I went to the office of the city clerk in lower Manhattan with my partner Dustin to register for our domestic partnership was coincidentally also the first day same-sex partners were allowed to register for marriage in the state of New York.
The problem with the literary hothouse of New York City is that people spend so much time looking in the mirror. They go to parties with people who are just like them, and they write novels about people who are just like them. It's limiting.
I traveled with then-Senator Obama to Israel in 2008. I will never forget our time in the holy city of Jerusalem and following behind him as he approached the Western Wall - and even in the dark hours of that very early morning, it was a place bustling with energy afforded by one's faith.
We did such a great job of creating the interstate highway system in Oklahoma City that we don't have traffic congestion. You can actually get a speeding ticket during rush hour in the city. That's how great our traffic flows.
I used almost every penny I ever made to build recording studios in every city I lived in. I don't have much to show for all the TV money except a lot of musical gear and a lot of songs.
At its heart, 'Fat City' is not about boxing. It is a universal story of grim realities and toxic delusions. It is awash with awareness of chances blown, dreams stymied, precious time wasted, and all future prospects scorched to ashes by the process.
Atlanta is an incredibly cool city.
Any city that's worth a dang certainly has a musical heartbeat, a culture, and a scene that can stand on its own.
I've been hearing from people saying they see me more than they do their city council member.
I love traveling, I love waking up in a new city every day.
I love visiting LA. It's an endlessly fascinating city, and is, of course, America's entertainment capital. Each time I go, I fall in love with it all over again. That said, it's not the sort of place I'd want to live.
I lived in New York City, and when I was about 24 in the 1980s, I decided to get out of here. I wanted to go live in Australia for a year or something, and it ended up being 18 years.
When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.
Rudy Giuliani did some phenomenal things in the city if you think of the transformation of the city and the quality of life.
St. Louis is a good example of a vibrant city. Having stayed in a hotel in 2011 overlooking Cardinals stadium when they won the World Series, their fans definitely show up loud and proud.
I believe in that connection between freedom and the city.
I just wanted to be who I was, which was like so many other girls I knew. We grew up in the city, had a hard edge and obstacles to overcome, but we were still young and beautiful. I didn't want to be all dressed up, all made up - I wanted to be myself, which hadn't been done before.
The penalty for getting mugged in an American city and losing your ID is that you can't fly home.
I love traveling around promoting different movies because I'm always looking at different places, and I always walk around to see the city.
We have a community where almost 50 percent of the people in the city of Cleveland alone have some type of record. I represent one of the poorest districts in America - out of 435, I'm 422.
A city is where you can sign a petition, boo the chief justice, fish off a pier, gaze at a hippopotamus, buy a flower at the corner, or get a good hamburger or a bad girl at 4 A.M. A city is where sirens make white streaks of sound in the sky and foghorns speak in dark grays. San Francisco is such a city.
A crowded ferry ride away from Tanzania's coastal city, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar is a marvel for the senses. Every sight and smell is provocative, inspiring a sense of the old and new.
So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, and from ocean to ocean, hear these words: You will never be ignored again. Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.
Investment banks started recruiting at Harvard back in the day, and they'd fly me down to New York City and I was so poor so I would take advantage of the free flight, the per diem, the hotel. And then I would go audition for stuff.
If I could live in one city and do every single thing I do there, I would choose Venice. You can't turn your head without seeing something amazing.
In the early nineties, I was a cub reporter on a city newspaper in Limerick, and assigned to the courthouse there. One day, an old detective sergeant came and whispered to me in the press pit. He pointed out a young offender, a teenager who was up for stealing a car or something relatively minor, and said, 'See this kid? He'll kill.'
I want the kids to know that it's not a myth that somebody from their city plays and wins in the NBA. I just want to influence them to work hard and do whatever they want to do in life, whether it's to be a basketball player or scientist... if they believe in themselves, they can do anything.
Compton is my city.
I come back home almost every weekend, or my wife comes up every other weekend to Vancouver. So, in that sense, we make it work. It's just a great city. It's a great country. They've been good to me, and I have no problems being up there.
