A Gull from New York City patrolling one of the Staten Island Ferries

© Christine Mastroianni, all rights reserved

This is my city… mine. I get a free ride on this ferry whenever I want so I can chatter my lungs out at all the pretty gulls that hang out here. I get to fly solo to the top of the Empire State Building and look down at the rows of rooftops and trail of taillights as the sun grows weary from illuminating this energetic metropolis all day.

If I feel like perching on a bracket in front of the Coca-Cola display at One Times Square and bathe in all its warm, neon glory, then I am going to do it whether Newscorp likes it or not! I repeatedly and brazenly ignore orders like "No Standing", "No Trespassing", "Don't Honk" and other posted restrictions that this city's human inhabitants feel the need to impose on one another. I don't even have to concern myself with their preposterous threats...penalty schmenalty.

I get to feast on half-consumed big apples and discarded hot dog buns and capsized bags of popcorn in Central Park for as long as I want and then proceed to drop my duty into the Bethesda Fountain. And there's not a darn thing you can do about it!

Look at that magnificent skirt of skyscrapers that watches over these Staten Island Ferries as they pass one another day by day, hour by hour. I've flown over every single one of those towers and I know which ones have the best gardens erupting out of their soaring pillars of metal and concrete. Never mind the Grey Line trolley buses. You want to see New York City, stick with me. I'll show you New York City. This is my city.