Jonathan Levine Quotes

Part of being in New York is being able to brag about what used to be there.

I found that through my life, living in the city of Toronto, I look above the Pizza Pizza sign, and I look above the other signs and window dressing, and I see evidence of a city that no longer exists in the keystones and the decorations that line the tops of buildings. That presence of the old city has always moved me.

I've always liked lost, old New York.

It's a shame about California, and particularly about L.A., where they've demolished so many landmarks. It's a bit of a disease there, where if anything is over 30 years old, they sort of knock it down and replace it. It's a strange town, it's this sprawling suburb, and then there's a city, the old town.

I used to build lofts in SoHo back when there was nothing there. I had a stoop on West Broadway between Prince and Spring. My partner and I would sit there, eat dinner, and watch the world go by.

I love Columbus Circle. I rebelled against the construction for a while because I go back to the '70s. There was no Time Warner building. Now I've started to really like it.

New York has always been a city of change and a city about change, and it is a back-leading development. Nobody's going to want to come to New York if it looks like another strip mall.

But I can tell you that the New York that I see now is not the New York that we grew up in. It's not 1973.

Melbourne is wonderfully altered since I last saw it. There are some very fair buildings in it now, and things are a little cheaper than they used to be.

The City gets more and more beautiful every time I come home.

Buildings like Penn Station attract our protective instincts not only because of their beauty but because we fear what will come to replace them.

Certain parts are bad in every city, but Chicago is beautiful.

Like all things, cities must change - even a city as enamoured of the past and memory as D.C.

When I lived in Delhi, it was burdened with so many futures - fast roads, malls, flyovers - that one felt almost obliged to be hopeful. Now that hope has diminished, you can feel the city going into a frenzy to reinvent itself. I miss living there.

I have great memories of the old Times Square - wouldn't have missed being here to see that place for the world - but I can also deal with the new Times Square in the overall scheme of N.Y. City 2010.

Sometimes I miss the spirit of London, but it's a very gray place.

Every city is always changing, on its own trajectory.

In Paris, there has to be a presence. History becomes the most interesting when it's compared to the present. I mean there's a whole group of people that want to build new buildings that look like old buildings.

It's still possible to find pockets of old Dublin - but its becoming more and more rarified.

When they show the destruction of society on color TV, I want to be able to look out over Los Angeles and make sure they get it right.

The New Orleans I knew ain't no more.

I think New York has evolved in my work just the way the city has.

The present in New York is so powerful that the past is lost.

In the beginning, New York and I had kind of a love-hate relationship. It seemed so abrasive compared to Europe. But the transformation here in recent years is really something. I don't think I would have seen as much change if I'd lived in any other city in the world.

The city of magnificent intentions.