> I've only been to NYC twice, both times were about 15 years ago. It was pretty clean then. I also lost my cell phone (slipped out of a pocket) and this girl took the time to track me down by calling people in my phone, she located my hotel and arranged to give it back to me. (she was black). She also wouldn't take the $20 I offered her. I don't want to go back to NYC now because I know I would be very disappointed. I want to keep the NYC I remember as my memory. I still have family and friends in NYC and I avoid going as much as possible. As much as I disliked Rudy Giuliani he did manage to clean up the city. Now it's a nightmare again, like when I was a kid. > Same goes for Paris, been there a few times and it was amazing (except there was still graffiti) and the people could not have been nicer. I do not want to see what it has become. Agreed. I haven't been back to Paris in five or six years. I used to say it was the prettiest city that smelled like urine that I've ever been to. The last time I was there the migrant community had grown to the point where we pretty much wrote of going back.