INTRODUCTION: A PLACE APART

“As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world.”

—Pearl S. Buck

New York City is a very real place, but no one can deny it is also somewhere magic occurs and all sorts of fantastical things happen. The metropolis is the epitome of urban action, romance, and excitement. It has no shortage of wonders: mysterious portals to other times and locations, magical hidden sites, and enchantments galore. Fascinating folks can be found just about anywhere and there are more exotic beasts than one might expect. Myths are born in its five boroughs. For countless people, New York has long been a city of dreams, the only destination that can truly fulfill all their hopes and desires.

The city that never sleeps—perhaps because of that famous wakefulness—has its dark side too, of course, and gives birth to nightmares as well as dreams. But there’s no likelier place to find help, heroes, or the special power needed to overcome the nefarious than New York.

It has been called the Center of the Universe. Anything can happen in New York—and when it does, it is accepted as part of the everyday and sometimes never noticed at all!

If that is the reality, then is it any wonder that New York has inspired imaginative writers, from Washington Irving to any number of contemporary authors to combine fantasy with the tangible?

Welcome to a volume of twenty fantastic tales that may never have happened … but if they ever did, they could only happen in New York City!

Written on the eighty-sixth anniversary of the dedication of the Empire State Building.

Paula Guran