On a crowded subway car after midnight, the mood is somber. The New York Knicks have just lost Game 3 of the NBA Finals at home. People sing along half-heartedly as the theme from “New York, New York” emanates from a Bluetooth speaker, and I start to worry that the positive energy built up over the previous week is going to slip away.
I can’t help but feel invested, even though I’m not a local. Yes, I’m from New York State, but before this summer, I had not had a consistently good time in the city since I was a child. During visits to my grandparents on Long Island, I would be ferried across the East River to see fossilized dinosaur bones, ancient Egyptian artifacts, and the four floors of the now-closed Times Square Toys “R” Us (there was a dinosaur in there too). Those trips happened only two or three times every year, though, and they stopped when my grandmother died and my grandfather moved upstate.
Since those days, I have not felt any strong attraction towards the city. Whenever I visited my college friends, nearly all of whom had been there since we graduated, it seemed like everything worth doing was either shockingly expensive or required standing in line for hours. Besides that, I felt it was too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, and too crowded in general. Notwithstanding my doubts, however, I knew there had to be something to it, because most of my friends showed no indications of moving anywhere else. And so, though I never really thought it would happen, I decided that if I ever got the chance to spend some more time in the city, I would.
Well, I generally consider myself a lucky person, and now, yet again, I find myself in the right place at the right time. Thanks to McGill and the International Human Rights Internship Program, I’m living in New York City. My internship at Human Rights Watch has already been one of the best and most fulfilling experiences of my academic/professional life, due in no small part to the guidance of my colleagues in the International Justice Program. That, and getting to see my friends, would have been more than enough.
It turns out, however, that the summer of 2026 is shaping up to be one of the best periods in history to be in New York City. I’ve gotten to experience Pride Month, the FIFA World Cup, America’s 250th—and I even saw Mayor Zohran Mamdani out in public on my birthday. Most importantly, I got to be here on June 10, when the Knicks came back from 29 points down to win 107-106 in Game 4. All the nervous energy in the city evaporated, replaced by sheer joy. No sad subway ride that night.
Maybe I’ll never be a real New Yorker, but at least now I know what I’ve been missing.