Why is New York so fascinating?

42nd Street Times Square, between 7th and 8th Avenues

Today we went down to Times Square to buy those elusive tour tickets for Yankee Stadium. According to Where New York magazine, we can buy the tickets at Times Square so we don't have to go out to 161st Street in the Bronx to buy them. When we got there, the ticket booth was empty and the salesperson told us that they don't sell tour tickets here. This was our third try to get tickets so we gave up. The first time we did go to Yankee Stadium but the tour was sold out. The second time, we went to Times Square on a Sunday afternoon, and a different salesperson said to come back on a weekday. Well, this is a weekday, and we still got nothing for our trouble.

On the map, this area is also called the Theater District.  We could see the American Fantasy Machine in full swing: Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, Mary Poppins The Musical, The Lion King The Musical, and dotted in between, the souvenir shops and the ubiquitous McDonald's. But the sidewalks are trashy and the gutters are wet and slick with pulpy paper from yesterday's rain, touts in red vests line the street corners, and so do the discreet women of dubious virtue. And still the tourists come to this place, this Mecca of Fantasy. It's hard to say why people come to Times Square. Is it everything they expect? Some glitter amidst the sham?

I heard a tourist ask a cop in Times Square, where is SoHo? He had the hardest time trying to explain this because many of New York's districts are without borders. There is nothing to delineate, say,  Chinatown from Little Italy, except Canal Street, and even then, you will find Chinese businesses in Little Italy. New York districts are also a state of mind. People living around Columbia University like to say they live in Morningside Heights, not Harlem. 

That's what makes New York City fascinating. People make up their realities as they live them.