Summer in the City: Dog Attacks, Painkillers & My First Terrible New York Fling
My first summer in New York was sickeningly hot–I remember it as one long heatwave, the air shimmering above the concrete. Every night I’d get out of work at a vegan restaurant in the East Village and walk to the train over sidewalk graffiti that read “do you feel it? yes” in loopy pink script, and I did feel it. The whole delicious night ahead of me, that specific smell of New York summer in the air–hot garbage and car exhaust and the scent of stale beer coming from bars with doors thrown open, but also the breeze fingering its way into the city from the river, the green of the trees above you, sun-baked asphalt.