What Is New York?

‘Every city has a sex and age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine…. London is a teen-ager and urchin, and this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.’
—John Berger, from The Guardian 27 March 1987

What is New York? You could distill Manhattan to a 30 year old woman always looking for something, perhaps. The outer boroughs are more complex.