In “City Limits” by Colson Whitehead, the author speaks about life as a true New Yorker and how the city is portrayed and viewed by those who live there. He mainly grabs the reader’s attention by using his personal experiences and hypothetical scenarios to show everyone has their own private New York. According to Whitehead, a true New Yorker tends to remember the old things but they also notice change. For example, Whitehead talks about the Pan Am building, which is referred to as the Met Life building today. This is an example of old New York overlapping new New York. He states that someone else might just see the Met Life building and they’re wrong but he states that he is also wrong. This is because he sees what it used to be, the Pan Am building. This relates to his other point of New Yorkers being resistant to change. He later goes on to speak about the the changes in everyone’s “private New York”. Our private New York is described as our own experiences of New York through the changes we see. In our private New York we may not have known each other but we may have encountered the same places or things. Whitehead also notes that, as we remember the city through our experiences, it also remembers us and our many flaws. In our New York, the city sees us at our best and worse & has yet to judge us. Whitehead makes a comment about how NYers should respect and appreciate the city as much as it does for us. For example, “New York City does not hold our former self against us. Perhaps we can extend the courtesy”. Throughout the article, Colson Whitehead’s tone tends to shift, along with his perspective. He seems to have an informal tone for that focused on himself and his own feelings about the city in the beginning. It later shifts to talk about how the city treats us and the appreciation we have or should have for it in return.