Becoming a New Yorker

Sometimes you have to leave home to find out where you’re from

For most of my life I never fully understood what it meant to be from New York. I knew New York City was special but not from personal experience. It had a mythical quality born from the stories I would overhear supplemented by endless TV and Hollywood narratives. But growing up 90 minutes north of the city in Poughkeepsie I also knew that New York State was much more than just ‘the City’. For me it was the Mohonk Mountain House and FDR Mansion, the Dutchess County Fair and the Poughkeepsie Riverfront. What I did not know was that most of America did not make the same distinction. Before I first moved away from home New York was as much the Adirondacks and apple picking as it was Manhattan and the Yankees. After my move to Boston is when I began to realize being from New York meant very different things to the rest of the country than it did to me.

First and foremost, residents understand that there is a distinct difference between ‘being a New Yorker’ and ‘being from New York’. Being a New Yorker is a direct reference to living a significant portion of your life in one of the five boroughs. Living in New York City is one of the most unique experiences one can have for more reasons than I can list here. Being from New York you only really sample New York City, but you know immediately that the lifestyle is very…