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Well the thing is that the New York of 1846 to 1862 was very different from downtown New York now. Really nothing from that period still exists in New York.

New York vintage is too expensive!

You know, because of the lack of budget, we had to find neighborhoods where time had stopped - kind of stuck in the '50s. And no place had that better than Staten Island.

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.

I would encourage more development in the boroughs outside of Manhattan as well. I think it's great that this natural emergence has occurred in the lower part of Midtown, but there's tremendous potential in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island as well.

It's been fascinating working on a set in New York. Just to be in the thick of it is really interesting, because on any given day you're having to react to what New York is offering, if that's a thunderstorm or blocked traffic or a bunch of noise.

We didn't build the interstate system to connect New York to Los Angeles because the West Coast was a priority. No, we webbed the highways so people can go to multiple places and invent ways of doing things not thought of by the persons building the roads.

All sorts of creative communities are withering in New York because it's too hard to live here. It's ridiculous how expensive it is.

So now, thirty years, forty years later, I mean, I could find a whole orchestra of a thousand to put these things together in New York City alone. In those days, if I could scrape up twenty musicians to do this it was something extraordinary.