50 reasons fall in New York is the best
- Central Park is suddenly a magical, multicolored wonderland of crunchy-underfoot, leaf-throwing shenanigans.
- It’s finally cool enough to drink proper beer again instead of the generic watery crap we’ve been hosing our insides off with all summer.
- The color the sky turns right before the sun completely sets.
50 reasons fall in New York is the best
Leaves, hot booze, sweaters and snuggling—New York, we’d like to make out with you
by Time Out editors
edited by Sophie Harris
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/50-reasons-fall-in-new-york-is-the-best
1. Central Park is suddenly a magical, multicolored wonderland of crunchy-underfoot, leaf-throwing shenanigans.
2. It’s finally cool enough to drink proper beer again instead of the generic watery crap we’ve been hosing our insides off with all summer.
3. The color the sky turns right before the sun completely sets.
4. Cool New York fall fashion. Even if you have no style, NYC streets look like runways with all those layers. Also, layering clothes is the best.
5. Dark nail polishes at your local manicure joint.
6. That chilly, moody je ne sais quoi that only happens in New York and only happens in fall, where you walk around the city aimlessly and just feel so freaking good.
7. You can spend all of Friday night partying in the city and still be taking in the fall foliage in the mountains by Saturday lunchtime.
8. The temperature is perfect for smoking outside of bars—not so hot you miss the air-conditioning inside, not so cold your fingers fall off before you can get the thing to your lips.
9. Everything even vaguely near a park smells amazing.
10. The sadness of surrendering the iced coffee for a season is automatically combated by the delightful warmth of curling your hands around a hot coffee during your morning walk to the subway.
11. Boots! So long for another year, slip-ons and sandals. For the next six months, our main mode of forward motion will be stomping. Pile of leaves? Stomp. Puddle? Stomp. Foot of annoying person who shoves you on the subway? STOMP.
12. Fingerless gloves. And tights! Who doesn’t love a good pair of tights? (Gentlemen, stand back.)
13. Au revoir, lame-o blockbusters and golden-oldies arena tours! Everything’s classier in the autumn—fall movies, fall books, the museum exhibitions. Cultural events in fall, we kiss you on both cheeks in the Continental style.
14. Sleep, glorious sleep! Without the drone of the AC in summer or being wrapped in 237 layers of clothing in winter. Perfect napping weather.
15. Men dress once more like grown-ups (jeans, sweaters, boots) and less like massive hairy toddlers off to the sandpit (shorts, sandals, baseball cap).
16. BAM’s Next Wave Festival lets you see weird/bleak/angry shows from around the world without coughing up the airfare.
17. Prospect Park, you pretty, pretty thing.
18. Neat whiskey. There is no way to drink it (warm) in the summer without feeling like a idiot.
19. Pulling your comforter back out and spreading it over the bed and then climbing in for the first time in months.
20. The New York Film Festival. The excitement of booking a glut of great movies, the special-occasion feel of attending screenings in the plush Alice Tully Hall (and ogling big stars in the Q&A afterward), then gloating when they’re on general release and you’ve already seen them.
21. We have the most perfect blue autumn skies in the world. This is a proven fact. (It’s not.)
22. L.A. doesn’t have fall.
23. Nor does Greenland or the Sahara, come to think of it.
24. We have two gorgeous rivers to stroll along and sniff the sweet autumn air.
25. Emo kids finally get to wear sweaters and scarves without fear/shame.
26. Oktoberfest. Beer halls. Why, yes, we would love a pretzel the size of our face.
27. Fall contains New York’s two best holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving. All the drinking/feasting/dressing up or not dressing up and no gift-giving required.
28. Wearing sweater dresses with leggings. It’s basically like going out in your pajamas, but somehow it looks good.
29. Restocking your tea drawer/cabinet/shelf with all the good flavors.
30. Feeling a bit melancholy and poetic. Time to bust out the Emily Dickinson, yo!
31. Empire, Winesap, Northern Spy, Macoun. New York has the most scrumptious apple varieties, and the farmers’ markets are overflowing with them.
32. You can open your windows and rid your apartment of the air grown vaguely stale from repeated conditioning. Enjoy this for the few months when it’s possible before the sharp winter winds make it impractical.
33. ‘Tis the season of kissable, rosy cheeks. Go plant a smacker on someone right now!
34. You can start drinking Irish coffees and hot toddies without sweating out the booze immediately.
35. Sweaters. Sweaters. Sweaters.
36. Bye, mosquitos! Mwa hahahahah!
37. The Village Halloween Parade, a.k.a. the world’s biggest cosplay festival, gives you a great chance to let loose your creativity or marvel at the creativity/time management of others.
38. Longer/bulkier clothing makes it easier to eat what you want again, timed perfectly to the return of comfort food on menus.
39. More Citi Bikes in the racks (and fewer Citi Bikes to dodge as a pedestrian) as the fair-weather cyclists abandon their wheels.
40. Oh, and you can actually ride your bike in the city without turning into a sweaty mess. Riding a bike on one of the bridges on a crisp, autumn day is the best.
41. The streets don’t stink so badly in crisp autumn air. Summer is a nasal vandal.
42. More reasons to wear hats. All the hats. All the kinds.
43. Pumpkin. Spice. Motherfuckin’. Lattes.
44. The nighttime air temperature of New York in the fall plus the gentle glow of an outdoor fire heater is the very definition of blissful.
45. The beer boffins at New York’s artisinal breweries have been waiting all year to dazzle you with their hops-y amber brews.
46. Our leaves are crispier than anywhere else’s.
47. It’s haunted house and ghost-tour/walk season!
48. Midnight showings of old horror films.
49. Snuggling. It is clinically impossible to effectively snuggle in summer. Even if you’re snuggling solo, the first snuggles of autumn are like being reunited with a lover. Delicious!
50. Knowing that everybody in the world agrees that nobody does fall like New York City. Like, don’t even try to argue. (They made a Richard Gere/Winona Ryder movie about it, okay?)