Quick Vids.

One belongs to New York instantly; one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.

None of us has control over the place of his or her birth; we see first light in Patterson or Paducah or Pasadena, and that's pretty much that. Whatever we may feel about our hometown or the place we've currently come to hang our hat, somewhere along the line many of us also adopt a spiritual home or two. You don't really even need to have lived in a city for it to tantalize you or speak to your soul. Over time, I've formed serious romantic attachments to a number of such dream metropolises. San Francisco--my own personal Oz. Paris--mais naturellement! And then there's New York, my true karmic home.

As much as I love the Bay Area, I often find the lyrics of Dave Frishberg's "Do You Miss New York?" buzzing through my skull: "Do you miss … the anger, the action? Does this laid-back life style lack a certain satisfaction?" My infatuation with Manhattan definitely extends to the movies (or, as my wife has observed, "How many times can a sane person watch Annie Hall?"). Fortunately, there's no dearth of great Big Apple documentaries to somewhat assuage my longing for egg creams, Central Park, and the glint of the Chrysler Building at dusk.

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By Gary Handman

GARY HANDMAN heads the Media Resources Center at the University of California at Berkeley's Moffitt Library.