Everyone who's lived in this city for the past three months deserves to be celebrated (and to celebrate). So think of our New York Award winners this year as your representatives. Except Rudy. Think of him as your mayor.


Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
Who else?
   


Ladder 105, Engine 219
"This whole country was in a fucking coma. We were the only people ready to fucking deal with it."
   


Nathan Lane
"His performance as Max Bialystock seemed to be a metaphor for our city."
   


Jon Stewart
"If we don't give this award to the host of The Daily Show (say this with the slightest tinge of playful, parodied self-importance), the terrorists have won."
   


Denyce Graves
"Reared in a poor, tough Washington, D.C., neighborhood, Graves is no stranger to suffering, and you can hear that when she sings."
   


The Chefs
"Pintabona, with the aid of chef Gray Kunz and Spirit Cruises, moored a boat at the World Financial Center Marina and turned it into a floating kitchen."
   


Lars Nilsson
"A 35-year-old Swede with a meticulous education in both men's tailoring and French haute couture, has come to save American fashion."
   


Paul O'Neill
"O'Neill made his Bronx debut in April 1993, a certain mayor was elected in November of that year, and before long the Yanks were champs and crime was nearly gone."
   


The Strokes
"On the evidence of their debut album, Is This It, the Strokes are very much for real. And very, very New York."
   


Paula Fox
"The favorite writer's writer of Walter Kirn, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, and Andrea Barrett."
   


Thelma Golden and Lowery Sims
"They've turned the Studio Museum in Harlem into the cultural jewel in the crown of the new Harlem renaissance."
 
PHOTOGRAPHED BY NIGEL PARRY