I arrived to New York City, as a Colombian import in the 1980’s. I have been able to witness the city’s dramatic changes firsthand. I remember how 42nd Street and its surrounding neighborhoods were dark, dangerous and filled with Peep Shows and prostitutes. But some of these changes are just as noticeable in the outer boroughs. In Jackson Heights, Queens, along its Roosevelt Avenue, where a small but visible service economy grew amid travel agencies and check-cashers that, while seemingly unremarkable, were believed to have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars of drug profits each year.
As a child growing up in the city, you could understand how I failed to appreciate it is as the capital of the world. So as the city began its transformation, I too began to change the way I felt about the city. I read somewhere that if you are not too fond of someone or something you should purpose yourself to learn more about it and find something to like. And so I began to walk around the city, I got to know landm... [More]

I arrived to New York City, as a Colombian import in the 1980’s. I have been able to witness the city’s dramatic changes firsthand. I remember how 42nd Street and its surrounding neighborhoods were dark, dangerous and filled with Peep Shows and prostitutes. But some of these changes are just as noticeable in the outer boroughs. In Jackson Heights, Queens, along its Roosevelt Avenue, where a small but visible service economy grew amid travel agencies and check-cashers that, while seemingly unremarkable, were believed to have laundered hundreds of millions of dollars of drug profits each year.
As a child growing up in the city, you could understand how I failed to appreciate it is as the capital of the world. So as the city began its transformation, I too began to change the way I felt about the city. I read somewhere that if you are not too fond of someone or something you should purpose yourself to learn more about it and find something to like. And so I began to walk around the city, I got to know landmarks that tourists knew better than me, I began to develop a deep appreciation for the city’s resilience and history and architecture. I was saddened when I learned that the original masterpiece that was Pennsylvania Station had been taken apart and replaced by a structure far from par.
But don’t get me wrong, I am one of the New Yorkers that appreciate the new New York. I am proud that it has become one the safest cities and most importantly it is a city that never sleeps, in the sense that it is always growing and giving birth to new culture and experiences. I strive to keep myself abreast of its changes and incorporate them when relevant into both well-known and not so well-known paths of New York City.
I believe I inherited a passion for sharing our city with its visitors from my uncle who worked for over twenty years as a licensed tour guide. Every weekend he would come by in the van he used to take tourists around and he would take us on a tour, he would share new places he had discovered, interesting historical facts and most importantly it was just the sharing with the family that I enjoyed the most. With New York City as the backdrop to these memories they have become unforgettable. And I hope to help make them unforgettable for you too!