From some of the most remarkable people who have called the city home, come fifty-six candid accounts of long nights out and wild nights in, of first dates and lost loves, of memorable meals and miserable jobs, of slow walks up Broadway and fast subway rides downtown. From a mix of actors, artists, comedians, entrepreneurs, politicians, sports stars, writers, and more, these moving and memorable stories combine to form an impressionistic history of New York since the Great Depression, an accidental encyclopedia of New York hotspots through the ages, and a testament to a larger revelation, one that new arrivals of all stripes and eras have experienced again and again: what the songwriter Rufus Wainwright calls "having cracked the code of living life to the fullest."