The recent Derby hooplah came with a healthy dose of nostalgia, a homesick longing for our old Kentucky home and all the good folks who understand just how big of a deal this little horse race is. But this time of year is also a reminder of how and why we love New York, our adopted home of a few years now. New York is at its best in these warm weather months: the parks open up, the vacationers and Hamptons weekenders clear out, and the whole city seems to spread out at our feet like a balmy playground. Maybe it’s the extended daylight or the nice weather that makes the walk to the subway seem so much shorter, but there just seems to be more time in the summer — time to do all those things we said we would when we moved here, the things that made us fall in love with New York in the first place and that keep us coming back for more.

Art: “Brooklyn Bridge,” Georgia O’Keeffe (1949)

Poem: “New York,” Valzhyna Mort (trans. Franz Wright)

Book: Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York, edited by Sari Botton

Song: “Everywhere I Go (Kings & Queens),” New Politics

Video: “My City Style // Spring & Summer 2015,” Ingrid Nilsen 

Quotation: “I love New York on summer afternoons when every one’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it–overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

PHOTOS VIA: BROOKLYN MUSEUM, HIPPOCAMPUS MAGAZINE,