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Sometimes, I feel that Manhattan in particular has gotten really tame and gentrified or something.

The artistic element of Manhattan has kind of moved to Brooklyn. Has it changed it? Yeah. Has it ruined it? I would say no. It is what it is. I say better that than an urban war zone.

There's not really much destruction in New York besides the weather and it's a natural force so it's not like any destruction. But LA gets leveled (laughs). That's my comment to Hollywood.

The fact that New York continues in the face of all of the chaos, of the crime, of the madness, you just think that it would just pop and vanish, just explode.

Destruction is always an attractive idea. My brother and I used to spend weeks making models of cities so that we could destroy them in 15 minutes. There's a fantastic joy in destroying something that you've meticulously built. Then you're free to build a new thing. Destruction and creation... they're inseparable.

Manhattan seems pretty developed, you know what I mean? Like, it has peaked in culture.

And then, build a bustling wonderful city of the 21st century, with a restoration of a spectacular skyline, which Manhattan, of course, needs. So, that is really the design as a whole.

'The War in the Air' describes the destruction of Manhattan by air attack.

Manhattan's always fascinating, too, just a big, stinky, smelly conglomeration of numbered avenues and streets, but it's just got a vibe that's hard to beat. I shouldn't like it, but I do. I can't put my finger on it.

A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe and 50 times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.