I didn't wake up this morning intending to fall in love again with New York, but life conspires to upend your plans so often and in so many ways. It's a beautiful winter day here, and though this week's issue of New York Magazine jokes that we're wondering why we're "paying top dollar to cram into a city whose weather is currently doing its best imitation of winter on the Baltic Sea," I'm not wondering at all.

I've been reading E.B. White's slim 1948 book, Here is New York, watching PBS's New York documentary series, and dipping into a recently published anthology, "I Speak of the City: Poems of New York." It wasn't my plan to indulge in a hearty diet of literary and visual homages to New York, but here I am, comparing White's mid 20th century New York with my own. Some things have changed, of course, but many of White's observations are still powerfully astute and accurate. In fact, some of them are just plain prescient and eerie, such as:
"The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges.... All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York, the fact is somewhat more concentrated...and because of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority...a steady, irresistible charm."

Charm for the curious, with good intentions or otherwise, has always been a quality of the city, though rarely in an old-world, evocatively precious, nostalgic kind of way. Just about 200 years ago, the poet Samuel Woodworth, a transplant from Masschusetts, wrote "Hail! Happy city! where the arts convene/And busy commerce animates the scene.../The liberal mind, the high, aspiring soul.../These are the charms that give Industry, here,/ a pleasing relish and a hope sincere...."

I guess after reading all these head-bowing words that capture New York's sublime (and acknowledge, at turns, its seedy), I was a sucker for New York Magazine's "Reasons to Love New York Right Now" issue, which I threw into my shopping cart at Whole Foods today without even scanning the contents. As I rode the N train back to Long Island City, I read reason #13, by Jeanne Su:
"When I used to ride the N train as a kid, my mother would point out the glittering Manhattan skyline before our train dipped under the 59th Street bridge and say, 'Isn't that the most beautiful thing?'"

One of the reasons I love New York is because as big as this city is, I know exactly what Su is talking about. I folded the magazine into my bag, absolutely content, and looked out across the East River to the tiny island where the same lights began to glitter as dusk closed in. The sunset faded behind the Silvercup Studios sign and I felt myself completely charmed.