The Best of Metropolitan Diary 2024: The Readers Speak

An anecdote about an encounter at a park claims the top spot this year, outpolling four other favorites. All five are presented here.

Over the past year, Metropolitan Diary shared more than 250 tales of life in New York City. Now, readers have chosen the best.

New York Times editors narrowed the entire field to a top 5, from which readers picked their favorite during a two-week online vote.

As we head into 2025, we’d like to encourage you to share your New York stories throughout the coming year. Tell us about experiences that capture the city’s spirit and heart — an anecdote, memory, quirky encounter or overheard snippet of conversation that has stuck with you or only just happened. If it made an impression on you, we’re guessing it may well do the same for others.

Metropolitan Diary, which was first published in 1976, is The Times’s longest-running column and on track to hit the 50-year milestone in 2026. Please help us get there in style. — Ed Shanahan

Dear Diary:

I was in the habit of taking walks in Carl Schurz Park on early summer mornings, when the sun cast a lovely orange glow over the quiet East River esplanade.