Pete Hamill - Downtown (2004)

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It's a good demonstration of will for any terrorist outfit to consider. If they knocked out every subway line and all the bus terminals, New Yorkers would leave the house, moaning, and find their way to work. That's our tribe.

Pete Hamill

A half-century later, Mark Twain would say that the gold rush drastically changed the American character, ending the tradition of patient apprenticeships, the gradual mastery of self, talent, and money. Gold created the get-rich-quick mentality that has been with us ever since, most recently during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

Pete Hamill

New Yorkers, in general, love disaster. They love blizzards, power failures, etc. (I don't mean that they loved September 11.) A shared disaster brings them together more — ethnically, racially — because the disaster affects almost all of them, making no distinctions. Their manners are generally very good indeed. And their generosity can be without limits.

Pete Hamill