I recently heard Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z, and it got me thinking. The song paints New York City as this grand concrete jungle where dreams are made and anything is possible. It is an iconic record, no question. But I have lived in New York City since I was five years old, and my experience has not quite matched the picture that song paints. More than that, I would argue that is the case for most people who actually grew up here.

We have a lot of transplants who come to the city chasing a dream, usually something in the arts, and they go through their whole starving artist chapter. They tend to describe New York like it is some magical oasis of creativity and culture, and I understand the romance of that idea. I just do not see it the same way.

New York is my home and I am not here to knock it. I love this city. But it is not all it is cracked up to be, and honestly that could be said about almost any place people put on a pedestal. Paris, cities across Italy, anywhere that carries a certain reputation for being extraordinary. There is a real difference between visiting a place and actually living in it. When you live somewhere, the magic tends to give way to reality pretty quickly.

Take Times Square. To me it is a tourist trap, plain and simple. Crowded, loud, and full of chain stores you could find anywhere in the country. Most locals go out of their way to avoid it entirely. The crowds, the noise, the chaos. It is a lot to take in and most of us who live here would rather not.

That said, tourism is good for the city and I respect that people want to come here and experience it for themselves. I just cannot personally relate to it. When you grow up somewhere, you stop seeing it through a visitor’s eyes, and maybe that is the whole point.