I have to agree with Philip Hamburger that much like most of what we’ve read in class this semester, “Back From Where I Came From” by AJ Liebling is in deed a love letter to New York.

He describes New York as a microcosm that can function regardless of what is happening around it, and New York is even made up of multiple microcosms in itself that can function independently, as Liebling says “they live and die oblivious of the worlds around them”. They often clash with one another, and feed off of one another, but never depend on one another.

Liebling argues that there is simply no one better than the native New Yorker. No one speaks better, no one looks better (“New York women are some of the most beautiful in the world”), and while I’m not sure I can agree with those two statements, I see what Liebling is saying, that there is simply no place like New York.