“April is the cruelest month, / A smile will make it better. / But if you frown and act depressed, / You’ll only make it wetter.”

As these three world-historical figures ascended to the Great Perhaps, life in the city carried on in its usual sublunary style.

Epic suffering elsewhere in the world made the misfortunes of New Yorkers seem merely farcical by contrast, but they were real enough to those who experienced them.

The city is inexhaustible. We have to believe that—as the mayor would say—porque somos nuyorquinos.

Having somehow endured another Christmas, New York entered the cheerful but slightly crapulous run-up to New Year’s Eve determined not to let the hard mask of amusement slip.

While the rest of the nation gave itself over to other preoccupations, the city insouciantly carried on with the ordinary business of life.

New Yorkers showed their peevish side, vexing over grievances both real and imagined.

The week, a drab late-winter run-up to St. Patrick's Day, offered promise of future delights.

It was a week of high frivolity, as the city gave itself over to ogling frocks (and the preternaturally beautiful models who wore them), erecting enormous artworks, and arguing about porn.

Although outwardly uneventful, it was a week in which New York was tested in ways both subtle and obvious, trivial and serious.