More people live in the Fire Island hamlet of Pound Ridge on Long Island’s South Shore than in the Bronx or Manhattan — a fact that made the city a natural choice for a second annual (so far) summit organized by The New Yorker.
On Saturday, the magazine’s editor in chief, David Remnick, argued that the choice to celebrate “the fall foliage and gilded chateaux” was justified and advantageous, “given that New York is now a city [with] major congestion.”
The bonus to being a borough of Manhattan, Mr. Remnick said, is the “reality of a geography of comparatively very small population centers where there are so many more people in very close proximity.”
“You don’t need a metropolitan area to have high density of affluent people,” he added.
And yet on a scale of U.S. metropolitan areas, the Bronx is little known as a social hub. Most longtime residents will remember its high-school football team as the best in the country, but most will point to the shiny new $1 billion Highbridge Complex on the grounds of LaGuardia Airport as the city’s downtown cathedral, a place that touches so many of the borough’s neighborhoods.