Swansong

I arrived in New York on Election Day 2000. The networks declared Florida for Gore, and then Bush, and then Gore again...until they finally admitted that they just didn't know. You remember how that worked out... My first four weeks were in the Hudson Hotel, which had just opened, and seemed to me to be the hippest hotel this side of the millennium. These were the boom years, and when I found my apartment, on East 81st Street, I had to put down $14,000 just to move in (the rent was $1800 a month) - because having just transferred from London, I had no credit history.

That Christmas, my grandmother and mother came to visit. My Mum's gift to us was a helicopter tour over the city. The day we flew was a perfect winter's day in New York. Cold, blue, crisp. I have stunning photos of the Statue of Liberty, Central Park and the twin towers.

Nine months later, my Grandma, and, catastrophically, the towers, were gone. In the days after, I remember two things. The wail of sirens. And the city, plastered with pictures of the missing - at subway stations, on lampposts, on billboards, wherever there was space. Many of the missing would never be found.

But New York rises. And in 2002, optimistic about the city's recovery, I started a business. The next three years were a fabulous rollercoaster ride. In August 2003, during the blackout, I walked home from my tiny office on Madison Avenue to Elizabeth Street, where I now lived. My phone there was old-school-number that plugged into the wall, not into an electrical outlet. So I got the call when my date that night rang to say that he wasn't going to make it, but could we reschedule? He didn't work out, but I owe him one thing: he introduced me to New York City's best borough.

In 2004, riding high on the profits of the business, I bought a little house in Park Slope, Brooklyn. House prices were skyrocketing, and it was difficult to find anything larger than a broom closet in Manhattan. But my 1910 row house had two bedrooms, and a garden.

A tree grows in Brooklyn because of me. There was a stump outside my house, so I called 311. I requested a street tree. The city faxed me a form, and - about two years later - as they had promised - they planted a tree where the stump had been.

When my biggest client disappeared in late 2005, I had to wind down the business, and find a corporate job. An ideal opportunity presented itself: heading up the New York office of London's foreign direct investment agency. Fascinating times...meeting companies large and small that might have plans to expand to London. We got the NBA to open their European office there. And I kicked off the process that ensured that Facebook had a London office. Interestingly, I also met with Stanford Financial, one of the companies disgraced in the recent economic crisis. I remember that we could never get them to confirm their expansion decision. They didn't like the disclosure requirements which the UK's Financial Services Authority insisted upon. Funny that.

Nineteen months after joining the London team, I was made an offer I could not refuse: to work for New York's most powerful business group, The Partnership for New York City. My decision to switch teams made headlines.

I stand by that decision today, even as I prepare to move on. New York is still the sexiest city on the planet. It's dynamic, dirty, challenging, frustrating, thrilling, entrepreneurial and just plain fun. It breaks my heart to be leaving this mischievous and marvelous monument which not to look upon would be like death.

Except, reader, except.... That I made it here. So I can make it anywhere. And...
I'll be back.

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