Weekly List: New York-Centric

Anybody who knows me knows I'm moving to New York in 4 days. So that's kind of my big event of the week. In celebration of this big event, I've decided to dedicate my first weekly list to my ten favorite New York-centric pop-culture items, from songs to books to movies to TV shows to people. And here we go!

10. Summer in the City - This beautiful, Regina Spektor penned and performed tune shows us a different side of the city, one we're not used to seeing in pop culture. It encapsulates perfectly what it feels like to be lonely in a town where so many people are happy and others removed from humanity. It also shows how powerful New York is as a city, and how it can become an entity in someone's life.

9. The Fountainhead - I put this on here for a few reasons, and despite a few reasons. While I don't think New York is entirely key to the book, and that it would have been just as effective in another city, I do feel it casts light upon one of the most important elements of NYC: architecture. What do we truly know NYC for? The high-rise skyscrapers. This book shows us how much is behind the architecture, and only leaves us guessing as to what the stories behind the buildings we know so well truly are.

8. New York State of Mind - LA has I Love LA, San Francisco has I Left My Heart..., and NYC has New York State of Mind. If you want to hear what it's like to truly love a city, listen to this song. It's a more poignant love song than many written between two human beings.

7. Ragtime - A more colorful display of the history of New York than most other depictions, but this musical really does show what life in New York was like in 1900 for the masses of immigrants coming through Ellis Island. It also sheds light on the beginnings of 20th century leisure, from vaudeville to magic, and shows the roots of the modern movement for racial equality and the beginnings of aggressive protest-style activism. Also, fucking amazing music doesn't hurt.

6. Tiffany Pollard - What kind of NY list would be complete without New York herself. The HBIC lives up to the city that she was so aptly named after, and that's why we love her.

5. SNL - To borrow an expression, when they're on, they're really fucking on. Classic New York comedy. The city has always played a key role in SNL's style of humor, and is inextircably woven into the culture of the show. It has become a landmark of NYC entertainment culture.

4. Friends - This one was a toughie for me, because it would probably have been a first place contender, but then I realized that it's connection to NY is quite superficial. The New York Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Monica, Ross and Joey lived in bares little resemblance to the New York we know. They shot on sets, and never on location, so the show doesn't really have a NY feel. But, it was a great show, and they lived in NY, so that's why it made this list.

3.Rent - One of the more gritty portrayals of one of New York's darkest periods. Rent unabashedly shows how bad living in New York was for those under the poverty line, and how little our government did during the AIDS epidemic. And it's fucking amazing.

2. Sex and the City - SATC is loved for a lot of different reasons. I love it mostly because it's just really well written. During the sitcom fest that was the late nineties we were getting a bunch of Friends rip-offs with pithy stereotypes of characters. Then this show came along, and the characters were real and believable and we cared about and liked them. And it's placement on this list was never is question because of how crucial New York was to the show. Carrie and the City were the most important couple in the show's history. We saw her all over New York, and we learned things about New York we probably still wouldn't know if not for the show. For the first time in television history, a city became a character as important as the one's doing all the talking.

1. Manhattan - Woodly Allen is known for New York City. He made three decades of films solely in the city. He knows the city better than almost anyone, and it shows in his films. Manhattan is his passionate love letter to a city that has obviously played such a key role in his life, and it's also one of the most beautiful portrayals of a city ever. The film has officially been deemed "culturally significant" and has accomplished the feat of becoming synonymous with the city in itself. Truly an incredible film.