Brave New Arrivals – The New York Times

“It’s sad to see everything closed down, but it is what it is,” Mr. Swaine said. “You have to like New York for its warts and all.”

Also seemingly able to reconcile a romanticized vision of the city with the grittier reality is Rosabel R. Young, 60, a neurologist from Redlands, Calif., who has signed a contract for an all-cash purchase of a one-bedroom condo in Battery Park City.

The apartment, which has a pass-through kitchen and three closets, was most recently listed at $549,000, after originally being listed in September for $575,000.

Dr. Young has fond memories of a trip to the United Nations as a young child in 1964, when her family lived in New Jersey before her father, who was in the Army, moved them to Spain for a more permanent assignment.

Decades later, while attending a medical conference in New York, she found herself waiting in line for 45 minutes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see a Marc Chagall exhibit. “I thought, ‘Boy, I must really like New York,’” she said.

In some ways, art has brought her back. Dr. Young, who works with people with brain injuries, founded a nonprofit group that encourages patients to paint, to aid their recovery. To raise money for the nonprofit, Dr. Young has sold some of those paintings at a gallery she owns in Barcelona, Spain. New York galleries, she hopes, might one day be interested in the pieces, too.

A widow who lives on a five-acre farm in the company of dogs, birds and bees, Dr. Young understands the recent urge to flee New York. Still, like a person who develops new skills after a bad blow to the head, she said, the city will find ways to cope.