[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to wrap up the day and wrap up the week with a call in on reasons to love wherever you live that's not New York City. 212-433-WNYC. Yes, I said reasons to love wherever you live that's not New York City. 212-433-9692. Nothing against New York City. I live in New York City. I love, love, love New York City, but New York Magazine has it covered. Alison did a segment with them the other day, New York Magazine's Annual Reasons to Love New York issue, so we decided we'll do the compliment, we'll do reasons to love anywhere other than New York that you happen to live. Meaning anywhere other than New York City.

It can be elsewhere in New York State or anywhere in another state or anywhere in another country or another continent. Can you hear me out there? 212-433-WNYC. Some of the reasons to love New York in their article that dropped the other day, a $45 million effort to make pregnancy less deadly in Brooklyn. My quest to drink a Nobu martini in my pajamas. Donald Trump has met his match in fellow Queens native Arthur Engoron, the judge. Those were some of the reasons to love New York City. How about the reasons you love living in your town in New Jersey or Connecticut or Westchester or Rockland or France or Australia? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. We were looking at some Long Island things.

A reason to love Port Jefferson. The Charles Dickens Festival named the number-one festival on Long Island beating out the Oyster Fest in Oyster Bay. Maybe you love looking north, Tuxedo Parks Renaissance Fair, or maybe your town has a really great venue for local musicians or a slam poetry night if New York City is flattening into disneyfication or some other hidden gem. 212-433-WNYC. You get the idea. Reasons to love wherever you live other than New York City because New York Magazine has that one covered. 212-433-9692. We'll take your calls right after this.

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Okay, 10 minutes of your short takes on reasons to love wherever you live other than New York City. Let's start with Analisa with reasons to love Mexico City. Hi Analisa. Hello from New York.

Analisa: Hi, Brian. How are you? First time, long time.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on. What do you love about-

Analisa: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: -living in Mexico City?

Analisa: I fell in love with just how lush it is. All the people from New York that I know there just talk about how many trees and birds and how luscious it is. Also, just the welcomeness, just the really warm culture of Mexicans when you just meet them. They invite you into their homes, there's the dancing. I think one thing that really stands out too is the public display of affection. You'll see 50-year-old couples kissing and hugging, you'll see teenagers just holding hands. It's a really beautiful culture-

Brian Lehrer: Nice.

Analisa: -and definitely some things I love about that.

Brian Lehrer: Analisa, thank you. Thank you so much. All right, Phil, with reasons to love Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Phil.

Phil: Hey, what's up, Brian? How you doing? The reason I called was because I do love Jersey City and I also love Hoboken, North Bergen, Weehawken, and Edgewater. The reason I love those places is because as a Native New Yorker, they face New York and I really wouldn't have it any other way. I need that access.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: You don't have to be in it, but you can look at the skyline and access. I hear you. Laney, with reasons to love, is it Sussex County in New Jersey? Is that where you are, Sussex?

Laney: Correct, Sussex County, New Jersey. Yes. I'm a born and bred New Yorker who moved here in 2001. Not because of 9/11, but because I got married. I look out the window and see mountains, colors. Snow is white for a very long time and there's no traffic.

Brian Lehrer: Nice, Laney. Thank you very much. Here's Megan with reasons to love Buffalo. I already see the smirks out there. This is going to be a very short call. Hi, Megan, you're on WNYC.

Megan: Oh, if they're making fun of me in the control room, then we definitely have a fight.

Brian Lehrer: Not in the control room. No, no, no, I'm saying out there in radio land. We never make fun of our callers in the control room.

Megan: All right. Listen, I'm calling you from Queens. I'm actually driving, so Buffalo is where I'm from. I go back and forth a lot. We have affordable housing, so you can actually buy a house there in a reasonable neighborhood. The lake in the summer is absolutely beautiful. You have skiing south of the city, half an hour. You can go sailing or go boating or water skiing, whatever you want in 10 minutes, 15 minutes from most places of the city, and there's no traffic. There's a lot of Wegmans. What is better than that?

Brian Lehrer: What's better than a lot of Wegmans? Reasons to love Buffalo. While we're upstate, here's Marie with reasons to love Rensselaer County, which is right across the Hudson River from Albany. Hi, Marie.

Marie: Hi. I love it up here. 30 years in Queens, 30 years on Long Island. Moved up here full-time three years ago. Barrington Stage, Shakespeare and Company, the Berkshires, everything they have to offer. Troy, the City of Troy is undergoing a renaissance. You can buy a townhouse, a Brooklyn brownstone for less than $400,000 in Troy. There are so many young people here. The arts, the museums, the theaters, the Troy Savings Bank, musical. I could go on and on.

Brian Lehrer: I like the Capital District. I started my radio life on a Rensselaer radio station, WQBK. They taught me as somebody who came from Queens that you don't say Rensselaer, you say Rensselaer.

Marie: Right. Well, it's not colony, it's colonee.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: Marie, thank you very much. Here's Ben with reasons to love Clifton. You're on WNYC. Hi, Ben.

Ben: Hi. I've been living in Clifton for 20 years. As someone who grew up on the Upper West Side, it's very out of town. A very strong community feel. It's an orthodox Jewish community that is split across Clifton and Passaic. Just something we call [unintelligible 00:07:14] that all these loan organizations, people have organized in their house. They lend out things from surgical equipment, wedding gowns, things like that. The other thing that we come together around is a lot of learning. I get up every morning at six o'clock and there are 30, 40 people that we all are going to town together. It's just a wonderful place to raise my kids.

Brian Lehrer: That's wonderful, Ben. Happy Hanukkah. Thank you for the reasons to love Clifton. Janet with reasons to love Great Falls, Montana. Hi, Janet. Hello from New York.

Janet: Hi. Thank you, Brian. I'm a lifelong Montana resident and Great Falls where I've lived for a very long time. I call it life in a slow lane. It's not so caught up in the hectic pace of a lot of places and that suits me. More than that, even the glorious light we get here, it's a combination of the big spacious skyscape and in this locale of lot of sunlight, a lot of clear skies, but with enough cloud action to just make for dramatic, interesting variety of lighting all day long. Every day it's just such a joy.

Brian Lehrer: They say big sky country, right? The one time I was there, it seemed like a low-sky country. The sky was right on you. Do you get that experience?

Janet: Low. I don't think of it that way. It just feels so expansive to me in all directions. I could see coming from New York certainly.

Brian Lehrer: It was just so present. Maybe because there weren't buildings around and stuff. Janet, thank you. Donna with reasons to love Saint Croix, Virgin Islands. Hi, Donna.

Donna: Hi, Brian. I moved to the Caribbean in 1970, leaving New York along with a pack of people who were abandoning the city at that time. It's been very good for me. I've lived in Puerto Rico in the Virgin Islands. The air is wonderful. I'm listening to the Montana light, I would challenge that with the light that we have here. A vibrant community of artists because of the light and the color. It's a gentle life. A lot to do with the weather.

Brian Lehrer: Donna, thank you very much. Yes, that would be an interesting thing for an artist to do. Artists have probably done it, compare the light in the big sky country of Montana to the light which might be beautiful in a whole other way in somewhere like Saint Croix. Let's finish up with Darren in Longmont, Colorado. Darren, you're on WNYC, reasons to love Longmont.

Darren: Good morning, Brian. The best thing here are obviously the mountains. We're looking at the Rockies all the time, but then we have the fastest municipality-provided Wi-Fi in the country. We were rated higher or faster than the Google campus. We own our own utilities and the rates are low and life here is pretty frictionless like I would say.

Brian Lehrer: Darren, thank you very much. Reason to love Longmont Colorado, fast Wi-Fi. Thank you all for your wonderful calls. We could have done this for hours. Reasons to love wherever you live other than New York City because New York Magazine has that one covered. That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today. Reasons to love the Brian Lehrer Show, Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum are producers. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen who produces our daily politics podcast. Megan Ryan, the head of live radio, Juliana Fonda, and Milton Ruiz at the audio controls. Have a great weekend and stay tuned for Alison.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.