Maeve Higgins: You need guts to live in a city like New York

Why would we choose to live somewhere it takes guts to live in, when life is already tough enough? 

The writer Fran Lebowitz is considered a living embodiment of a certain vision of this city: ‘If I complain about the things I complain about, will they change? Not so far.’

LAST night on the subway, the F and J trains were delayed and I counted six police officers languishing around the platforms. These two facts are surely related, demonstrating as they do the priorities of the powers that be: The subway system is under-resourced and over-policed.

Why not spend the money on improving the ancient and busted up infrastructure instead of on overtime pay for cops? Mayor Eric Adams is a former transit cop himself, so there’s little hope he will ever see sense. It’s frustrating, but to quote Fran Lebowitz, the writer who is also a living embodiment of a certain vision of this city: “If I complain about the things I complain about, will they change? Not so far.”