We used to take the subway from Brooklyn up to Yankee Stadium. It seemed like I was going to Canada. Then, when you’d arrive, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. You could see the stadium from the elevated subway.
The first time I really saw wealth was going to the Metropolitan Opera. I should have probably felt poor when I was in standing room watching an opera and people in the box seats would all be in tuxedos. I should have felt a class disparity, but instead I just felt like a kid—a kid who was sneaking in.
New York is fast paced—that’s sort of built into you from the time you’re little. You get on the subway faster than people get on buses in most parts of the country. You get off the subway faster; otherwise, somebody’s going to knock you over. New York restaurants serve you about twice as fast as any place in world. You go to other parts of America, you go up to the ticket counter, it takes five minutes for the person to get the ticket out of the machine. In New York, that ticket would be out of the machine in two seconds so they can get to the next one.