THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NYC AND LA

I live here in the Los Angeles area…but I frequently go to New York for 3 or 4 days at a time…usually twice per month…

And, I have decided what, for me, is the most glaring and transcendent difference between New York and Los Angeles....and the even more profound difference between Malibu (where I live) and New York…

Most would concede that there are huge differences between the (2) biggest cities in America…the scale is a very obvious one….New York is a total immersion into a vertical, urban world….void of nature save for Central Park and a few other small parks. It is just awesome…being confronted with giant man made structures…some Art Deco, some Contemporary, some Greek Revival…etc..so much attention and focus onto every detail..the molding, the lighting fixtures, etc…so much juxtaposition of the new with the old…Trinity Church, first built in the 1600’s then rebuilt twice after fires, most recently in 1846, standing only a football field away from the new and modern One World Trade Center.

There is also a very different energy between New York and Los Angeles…borne in part from the density difference…and from the mentality differences between New Yorkers and Angelinos. People in Los Angeles live in suburbs...they live apart from urban centers and many don't live in high density areas...

But, to me, the most dramatic difference between NYC and LA….and the one that offers the deepest lesson in life....is the experience and interface between other human beings. In New York…you are constantly confronted with other people..and not just people from your neighborhood or socioeconomic class…not just people with whom you are taking the same “Hot” Yoga class, or people you see at your kid’s school recitals. New York forces you to live on the streets…even the rich and famous are forced to brush shoulders with the impoverished, or the "poorly educated", or people who don't own a car, or even a realistic dream. You can't get from anywhere to anyplace in New York without experiencing fairly close contact with some or many people.

In Los Angeles (or certainly Malibu) you can get in your Range Rover on your own property…maybe even behind a gated wall…and you don’t have to come out into public space until you are behind tinted windows…you can confine your exposure to those places that select for “your type of people”, your friends…those who have “beach keys”, or with those whose kids play lacrosse.

In New York you can be walking from the 5 Star St. Regis Hotel on 55th street to the Plaza Hotel on 59th for a dry martini and you might stumble directly onto a homeless man sleeping on 5th avenue. And, if you are taking the subway, as many do in NYC, even some CEO’s and Hedge fund managers, you will likely be making eye contact with lots of people you have absolutely nothing in common with, except you have everything in common with them…you inhabit this planet together...and you are all searching for a slice of the "pie", for yourselves and your children.

On my last trip to NYC I made direct eye contact with countless people…I watched people, I listened, not for a second but for 5 minutes or more…as they spoke quietly to their boyfriends or girlfriends, and as they kissed before parting for work. I looked into the eyes of young African American girls who had taken the Subway down from Harlem to work in lower Manhattan. I looked into their eyes…I watched them…and I had the chance to imagine what their lives might be like--the kinds of decisions that they have to make each day…and the kind of limitations they had to place on their dreams. I thought about what their futures might hold.

So many disparate people I had a chance to observe….it took me out of (my) world for moments at a time…I was standing or sitting just a foot or two away from them….as we traveled the miles together up and down the island of Manhattan. That is fairly intimate if you think about it. In some situations, while standing on a crowded subway, I was right up against another person, a stranger.

I love what it does to me…what it does for me….In Malibu we can tend to forget…how the other 99% lives. We don’t have to see them, or smell them, or listen to them talking…..or look at their sweatshirts or their bargain bought “couture”, or their messy manicures. We can live in our own “Private Idaho”, eating sushi and Organic produce from farm to table….or experiencing our regular facials and fat removing therapies. We can get our teeth whitened, and our horse’s teeth “floated”.

In New York you have to go face to face with those who can only dream those opportunities….in New York, you have to share life with the rest of civilization, at the pavement level…and be reminded, constantly…that everyone of us has a story…one that started years and decades before our paths momentarily crossed during that subway ride from Spring Street to Columbus Circle. Then, we go our separate ways. But, we don’t have to forget. That daily, constant, interface with the lives of others, the people who we are sharing this small planet with, and this this small window in time….can serve to compel us to align our heartbeats to theirs….but, we have to make eye contact, connect, and let our lives overlap.

We are all in this together.

Food for Thought……