Given the swiftness with which things change in a city like New York, it can be hard to hang on to anything too tightly. Which is probably why your favorite diner here matters so much—it marks time, meals, milestones, meet-ups. It’s where locals and out-of-towners and stenographers and plastic surgeons and kids and grandparents and couples on first dates and couples who just said “I do“ at the local courthouse all gather for rounds of coffee or an impromptu celebration with a single slice of pie.
Maybe we love our local diners so much because, like a mirror, they reflect our lives and loves back to us, becoming a reassuring backdrop for the comings-and-goings of our ordinary and occasionally extraordinary days living here.