On Tuesday after a networking event at the Cornell Club, I passed by Bryant Park where I often used to eat lunch with coworkers from Viacom. The park the way I knew it would always be crowded with corporate people eating and enjoying the sun under the tall trees by the spacious green lawn. So it was weird seeing the park just before sunset for the first time on this cool spring night, and seeing the expansive green lawn illuminated by the skyscrapers' thousands of lights.
The park was mostly empty except for a few parties and some couples here and there in intimate conversation. I sat down on one of those green chairs, and rang up C on the phone, and we talked for about an hour as I sat there in the refreshingly cool night.
After the phone call, I sat there by myself for a while. As I stared out into the distance, I remembered vividly events from my past, the places I had gone, the people I had met, the nights out, the nights in, the crazy, the fun, the shocking, the mundane, the fleeting, the pleasures, and the pain.
And I knew that New York, as I knew it, will never for me be the same.