(Photo: David Bailey)

Paris has the springtime. Miami’s got winter wrapped up. But no one—no one—does autumn better than New York. This is the season when you remember why you live here in the first place, just as the tourists are clearing out, driven away by the kilnlike August heat. It’s not just the leaves, the light, or the sudden sunny chill (though we’ll happily take all that). It’s the fact that, come September, you’ll have about 600 excellent things to do every day.

Like the pilgrims, New Yorkers associate the fall with abundance. But instead of pumpkins and yams and those weird nubbly squash things that no one eats, we’ve got Jack Nicholson onscreen, Julianne Moore onstage, and TV on the Radio. We’ve got a new novel from Thomas Pynchon, a new film from Sofia Coppola, and a brand-new season of Lost. So what’s it going to be? Richard Ford or Nell Freudenberger? MoMA or the Met? The Good Shepherd or The Good German? Beyoncé or Beck? This is what passes for a dilemma in autumn, which is reason enough to get excited. So fall in.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Table of Contents: September 11, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!