This reflection is long overdue—a quiet reckoning with the version of myself who wandered New York City in the early ’90s. It feels like a dream now, that time when the Twin Towers pierced the clouds, an imposing part of the skyline. I remember chasing the view from the top four or five times before the sky finally cleared, revealing the city stretched out below in dizzying scale. On cloudy days, we’d find ourselves above the weather, wrapped in a soft white haze. There was a quiet poetry in that—the strange, still feeling of being that high above it all. The elevator was something else: a smooth, surreal glide, rising 25 floors at a time. Even now, it reminds me of something out of a Haruki Murakami novel—those strange moments where the ordinary slips quietly into the surreal.

New York pulsed with icons then, each a thread in its restless tapestry. The Pan Am Building—now the MetLife—loomed over Grand Central, its brutalist silhouette a testament to the city’s ambition. I’d pass it on my commute, its shadow whispering of dreams that drew me here. Times Square, gritty and unpolished, flickered with neon and chaos, far from today’s polished glow. And CBGB, that gritty cathedral of sound, thrummed with the raw heartbeat of the ’90s. I didn’t know then that it opened in 1973 for Country, Bluegrass, and Blues, only to birth punk’s rebellion—Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Talking Heads. Once a dive for bikers, it became New York’s underground soul, a must for my generation, where youth felt eternal.

The city taught me its rhythm. Skating at Rockefeller Center, blades carving ice under golden Prometheus, I learned to balance in the chill of winter. Wandering the Bowery’s shadowed streets, I discovered how to be alone in a crowd, each step a lesson in solitude and connection. New York was never just a place—it was a memory in motion, a lifeline weaving through my days.

Of course, I can’t forget the Statue of Liberty—a beacon of hope standing tall in the harbour. Even the ferry was its own kind of experience, crossing the sparkling waters of New York with quiet anticipation. Stepping onto Liberty Island, I felt the weight of history settle into my chest.

In 1990,  it was much more easy to get access to climb the 354 narrow, spiralling steps to her crown, each one a small pilgrimage. My legs burned, my breath grew short, but when I reached the top and peered through the small windows in her crown, the city unfolded below like a distant mosaic. The view wasn’t vast, but it didn’t need to be. There was an intimacy in standing within her gaze—her torch a silent promise—that stirred something deep within me. A quiet awe. A connection to the millions who had passed beneath her light.

Like the city itself, she taught me something about resilience. Her weathered copper skin, turned softly green with age, felt like a mirror to my own unfolding hopes..

Another joy was dining at Tavern on the Green, a gem tucked in Central Park’s embrace. Built in the 1880s as a sheepfold for Southdown flocks grazing in Sheep Meadow, it had transformed by 1990 into a beacon of elegance, its 2014 rebirth a testament to the city’s quiet endurance. Sitting there, lamplight dancing on crystal, I felt time pause—a moment of grace, like watching age arrive with reverence.

Back then, I worked for Pan Am—a job that echoed the city’s restless pulse. I bought saxophones in Brooklyn and flew them to Brazil for resale, riding the airline’s rhythm. And you know, just getting those instruments across the city was an experience in itself—riding the New York subway with a saxophone case in hand is its own kind of adventure. Anyone in the industry knows the drill: if a plane had space, I was on it—no ticket, no cost, crossing hemispheres in a day. The catch was the return. A full flight meant bargaining with fate—or with my boss—usually with a sheepish grin. That job taught me the weight of freedom: the thrill of motion, the ache of uncertainty. It shaped me, like the city did, into someone who could navigate the unknown with quiet trust.

As I write, gratitude floods me—for the choices I made, the people I met, the strange, beautiful rhythm of a life that carried me here. New York, with its towers, its music, its streets, its sentinel of liberty, wove itself into my soul. Those days, those places, helped shape who I am, a tapestry of memory and resilience, stitched with awe.

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