Who doesn’t know someone who moved on a lark to New York—or plans to someday move there—and remembers or dreams of their own first, halcyon days in the big city? New York has always been the destination of choice for the tired, the poor, the hungry—as well as for the rich, the famous, and the well-fed. As the Census Bureau recently reported, even in these days of recession New York is gaining more residents than any city in America.
 
Based on the hugely popular recent New York magazine cover story, My First New York features memorable and moving accounts of early adventures in the city by some of the legions of remarkable people who have called it home, including:

•Actress Lauren Hutton on jumping into a cab without a destination that first day in 1964 and saying the only New York place that came to mind: “Tiffany’s!”
•Artist Chuck Close on days and nights at Andy Warhol’s nightclub, The Factory, in 1967
•Chef Padma Lakshmi on arriving on Halloween night in 1974
•Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels on immediately buying what he deemed essential to wear in New York in 1975: a green corduroy jacket
•Restaurateur Danny Meyer on arriving the night John Lennon was shot in 1980
•Comedian Andy Samberg on shooting mice with a water gun in his first apartment in 1998
•Actor James Franco on learning to take the subway in 2008

Other contributors include: 
 
David Dinkins, former mayor, 1933

Lorin Maazel, conductor, 1939

Yogi Berra, baseball player, 1946

Chita Rivera, actress, 1948

Jonas Mekas, filmmaker, 1949

Dan Rather, journalist, 1956

Larry Kramer, playwright, 1957

Tommy Tune, director and choreographer, 1957

Daniel Libeskind, architect, 1959

Liza Minnelli, singer, 1961

Nora Ephron, filmmaker, 1962

Tom Wolfe, writer, 1962

Judy Collins, singer, 1963

Bill Cosby, comedian, 1963

Danny DeVito, actor, 1963

Lauren Hutton, actress, 1964

Chuck Close, artist, 1967

André Aciman, writer, 1968

Mary Boone, art gallerist, 1969

Diane Von Furstenberg, designer, 1970

Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef, 1974

Lorne Michaels, executive producer of Saturday Night Live, 1975

Cindy Sherman, artist, 1977

Jann Wenner, editor and publisher of Rolling Stone, 1977

Gary Shteyngart, writer, 1979

Danny Meyer, resturateur, 1980

Susanne Bartsch, party promoter, 1981

Colum McCann, writer, 1982

David Rakoff, writer, 1982

Harold Evans, editor-at-large of The Week, 1983

Keith Hernandez, baseball player, 1983

Ira Glass, radio host of This American Life, 1984

Naomi Campbell, model, 1986

Audra McDonald, actress, 1988

Mike Myers, comedian, 1988

Chloe Sevigny, actress, 1991

Amy Sedaris, comedienne, 1993

Rufus Wainwright, musician, 1994

Maggie Gyllenhaal, actress, 1995

Michael Lucas, porn star, 1997

Albert Hammond Jr., musician, 1998

Andy Samberg, comedian, 1998

David Chang, chef, 1999

Michel Gondry, filmmaker, 2001

Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker, 2002

Ashley Dupré, former escort, 2004

Agyness Deyn, model, 2006

James Franco, actor, 2008

TK, new arrival, 2009