W. Bryan Hubbard

One thing I could remember was the Empire State Building and some dude with purple hair sticking his tongue out at me.

The next time was in 2019.

And I'd always had kind of that.

stereotypical southerner's attitude, a bunch of, you know, haughty, rude, mean-acting Yankee people living in an obnoxious locale that would just be hell on earth to have to endure.

So I had the opportunity to go and spend a day there and rolled into Grand Central Station on the railway from, I think it was New Haven, Connecticut.

And

just to watch the dimensions of the architecture as we rolled into the city.

Crazy.

The expansion of scale of this place.

How old were you?

Well, let's see.

I was about to turn 44.

I think I could hear the Beverly Hillbillies music playing in my head when I was going down through there.

So we get off at Grand Central Station, and I mean, I walked all through that.

I walked from Grand Central Station all the way down to the tip of where the World Trade Center was.

It was...

New York City is a monumental human accomplishment.

When you can have the entire world within 300 square miles, and it is a living affirmation of everything the United States is supposed to be as the last best hope of humankind on earth, just to be in that place.

Anytime I've gone back since, I mean the minute that I go to get the Uber at LaGuardia Airport and I see that skyline, I mean my heart just starts racing, racing, racing.

I would have never thought that I would just fall in love with New York City.