New York

By Noah Epstein

The Big Apple. The media capital of the world. The city that never sleeps. The city so nice they named it twice. Gotham City. Home of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Times Square and Fifth Avenue. The symbolization of the American Dream: where you can make it big, whether it be on Wall Street or Broadway.

The fact that Boston is mentioned in the same conversation as New York is extremely disrespectful to the powerhouse that is New York City.

New York City is better than Boston. New York has flashing lights, theater, music, great food and culture. Boston has an old baseball stadium and clam chowder. Don’t get me wrong, Boston is a great city with a lot of history. It just doesn’t compare to New York.

New York City has always been a symbol of freedom in our nation. When immigrants came to America in order to avoid hardships in their own countries, they would go to Ellis Island to gain U.S. citizenship and their freedom. When France gave us the Statue of Liberty, it was placed in New York. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of freedom, which is what America is to the rest of the world. New York City represents the freedom America prides itself on.

Now I know that as soon as the debate of New York versus Boston is brought up, the first thing that Boston supporters will mention is sports. Yes, Boston has been a much better sports city recently. However, New York teams have more championships in total, having 44 in comparison to Boston’s 38. The Yankees have a major role in contributing to that tally, winning 27 World Series titles of their own. There has always been a sports rivalry between New York and Boston teams.

It all started when the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $25,000 in 1919. Babe Ruth went on to become the greatest baseball player ever, and the Red Sox would not win a World Series for 86 years. A rivalry started because Boston fans were mad that the team they traded Ruth to, a New York team, was doing so much better than they were. The rivalry continued in 1978 when Bucky Dent hit his famous game winning homerun in Boston to beat the Sox, and once again in 2003 when Aaron Boone hit a game winning homerun to go to the World Series against Boston. It’s because of those home runs that all Bostonians refer to both Yankees players today, with the same middle name. The Yankees have dominated the rivalry against Boston from the start, and although the Sox have their moments, they can never be as successful as the Yankees.

The Giants have played the Patriots twice in the Super Bowl, and the New York team won both times. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in Brooklyn, New York, which opened the game up to players who never thought they would get their shot in the pros. All the opportunity that came from Robinson’s debut was born in the city of opportunity.

The food is ridiculously better in New York than any other city in the country, nonetheless Boston. The pizza and bagels are unreal, the Italian sandwiches are delicious and there’s not one spot in the city where you won’t find a food truck that smells like heaven.

The feeling alone of being in New York is a completely different feeling than being in Boston.

I still get chills walking down Times Square with the digital screens and billboards all around me. I still love the feeling of getting off the 4 train, turning around and seeing Yankee Stadium right in front of me. I still drop my jaw every time I see that beautiful Manhattan skyline, of which there is nothing like in the world. I still get emotional when I go to the 9/11 memorial, where the Twin Towers once stood, which commemorates the people who lost their lives in an attack against America.

They chose to attack New York because New York City is the symbol of the U.S.

New York is the city of opportunity. If you want to make it big and reach your dreams, it’s the best place to go. In the words of Frank Sinatra, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”

Boston

By Xavier Cullen

“Beantown”, “The City Upon a Hill”, “The City of Champions” and “The Athens of America.” These are just some of the names given to the greatest city in the U.S. — Boston.

Known throughout history as “the birthplace of the American Revolution,” Boston is proud of its rich history, and it is the reason why we all live in America and not Great Britain. It has been the center point of some of the most historic events this country has ever seen — the Boston Massacre, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, the Boston Siege, the 3-0 comeback by the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS and the Boston Tea Party.

Faneuil Hall, for example, the “Cradle of Liberty” and Boston’s historic marketplace, was built in 1742 and was the home of several speeches, town meetings and protests against British taxation. It was described as the “meeting place of the Revolution” and has held some amazing speakers ever since, including Susan B. Anthony, Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy.

History and culture are common themes ingrained in everyday Bostonian life, and the people that walk the streets are all connected, unlike New Yorkers who all hate each other. Every street has a story, every monument has a legacy and every person has a heritage. What better show of this connectedness than Boston’s love for our sports teams?

Between the four major teams, Boston has 38 championships. New York has 44 titles, but with twice the amount of teams. The New York teams are so bad that they need another team in order to catch up to Boston. Larry Legend, Tom Terrific and Big Papi are just some of the all-time greats that have played in Boston. The list is constantly growing as new players come into town every year, such as Torey Krug, Jayson Tatum, Rafael Devers and Sony Michel.

To put it into comparison, Tom Brady has been starting almost every game for the Patriots since he replaced Drew Bledsoe in 2001, the Jets have started 18 different quarterbacks since then. Now, they are forced to use their third string quarterback because Sam “This QB Will Be Good I Promise” Darnold got mono and Trevor Siemian is sidelined for the year with an ankle injury. Now, they have to rely on Luke Falk who, like a typical Jets quarterback, has already played for three teams in the two years he’s been in the league.

The New York-Boston rivalry in sports is nothing short of hostile, and for good reason. With such iconic incidents like Alex Rodriguez clashing with Jason Varitek, Karim Garcia and Jeff Nelson assaulting a Fenway Park groundskeeper, the Patriots constantly embarrassing the Jets and Carmelo Anthony being the career-long loser that he is, Boston teams have, for the most part, come out victorious.

And success doesn’t end at our sports teams. Boston is actively planning for success for generations to come with the great universities it’s home to. MIT, Harvard, Boston University, Boston College and Northeastern are some of the greatest schools in all of the U.S. and are just some of the options that Boston has to offer for a post-secondary education.

Boston also has great people and movies come out of it. Stars such as Matt Damon, Chris Evans, Uma Thurman, Mark and Donnie Whalberg, John Krasinski, Ed Norton, Leonard Nimoy and James Spader were all born in Boston, as well as famous politicians like the George H.W. Bush, Michael Bloomberg and the Kennedys.

But enough now about why Boston is better, let’s talk about why New York, the city itself, is worse. New York City is the definition of a tourist trap, with flashy lights and colorful streets to distract you from how bad everything else is. New York’s wealth inequality is worse than Mexico’s and Chile’s and is projected to get even wider. It is one of the most corrupt cities, with 1,534 corruption convictions from 1976 to 2017 in Manhattan alone according to a report from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Don’t forget that it is so much more expensive to live in New York than in Boston, even while salaries are still the same. A $75,000 salary in NYC is equivalent to a $118,191 salary in Boston according to Business Insider.

I can understand why New York City is attractive to people. It has big buildings, bright lights and, so I’ve heard, great water. New York is a place that people dream of going to when they are rich and influential, but Boston is the place where people grow from the ground up and make something of themselves. Irish immigrants came to this city for a place to call home. Over time, they made the city their own, and opened the door for other immigrants to come to Boston.

I know there are a lot of New Yorkers at Quinnipiac, and you might reject my opinion and think that New York is better, but just know that Boston has crushed New York in every aspect since 1630, just like we crushed the Jets last Sunday.