People in New York love to hate on summertime in New York. They love to talk about how hot, humid, and sticky the city gets, how the summer heat exacerbates the rotting smell of trash and causes the foul odors to spread everywhere. People complain about how hot the underground is when waiting for the subway. They love to say that “everyone” (with lots of money) leaves the concrete of the city for the summer to go off to the Hamptons, the Jersey Shore, or Europe. Not that many people who live in New York have that level of flexibility in their jobs to actually leave the city for an entire quarter of the year, but who wants to question it when someone makes a sweeping statement like that?

I actually love New York City in the summer time. I love all the summer programming that happens that is accessible for people of varying budget levels, like the Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City festival. I’ve enjoyed the free performances that have happened in the park during the summer, like the NY Philharmonic. I love that certain areas feel a lot less crowded, that there are endless nice cafes and ice cream shops that we can go to for enjoying a cold, sweet treat. While we do tend to go away for a couple weeks around Independence Day and to San Francisco, we spend the majority of the summer here. I think summer in New York City is definitely under appreciated and under rated. Why else would so many tourists come during the summer time to enjoy everything we have to offer?