“This one shows itself fresh every day.” Almost defiantly, the city now bristles with a number of new skyscrapers, as well as the One World Trade Centre. “Some changes you get used to after a while you stop noticing,” said taxi driver, Michael. It’s a sight that native New Yorkers still struggle with now, 21 years after the 9/11 atrocities. Most obviously, of course, was the gaping scar of absence left on the skyline by the fallen towers. Inevitably, though, it was not only I who was markedly different from the person I had been back in 1997 – the city was, too. Is it any wonder that many of us are drawn back to our pasts – whether reconnecting with old friends, reminiscing about an old flame, or revisiting scenes of a hedonistic youth?

And even though Madonna – now 64 years of age – continues to hold ageing at bay, most of us don’t have the wherewithal, nor the desire, to emulate her methods.

Visiting a significant place from a significant time has something of the high school reunion about it: excitement about “going back”, nervousness about whether reality will align with memory, and a self-critical eye that focuses anxiously on how much you’ve changed. Perhaps the Port Authority didn’t have lockers anymore, but it definitely still had buses – so I jumped on the next one out of there. Thanks to Madonna rolling into town on a Greyhound in the film, I realised that I could still channel some form of “Susan”, not to mention “Desperation”. Although it was several years before 9/11, security concerns had already stripped the facility of its storage units and my plans, such as they were, were scuppered. There was one problem: the lockers weren’t there. No, instead I packed a bag and headed to the Port Authority, to (as Madonna does in the film) stash my belongings in a locker and figure out what to do next. The counterculture and raw excitement of the East Village was intoxicating: I rarely ventured uptown.Īnd when an ill-conceived romance took a turn, I didn’t (as Madonna does in the film) check the personals to see if my true love had placed an ad for me. I rooted through thrift stores for eclectic fashion finds ate noodles out of cardboard cartons flirted with hotdog vendors compared piercings with a policeman, and danced until well after dawn in disused warehouses and smoky clubs. Instead, I haunted Battery Park – a key location in the film – and stared out to the Statue of Liberty, accompanied by buskers on bongos. So when I first arrived in New York at the age of 25, the American Museum of Natural History was not top of my list, despite my literary crush on Holden Caulfield. Yes, it’s utterly ridiculous and, yes, I love it as much now as the first time I saw it, aged 12. It’s a riot of disco music, sassy clothing, mistaken identities, edgy warehouse living, stolen artefacts, dangerous criminals, corner diners and seedy clubs. But of all the many films – Ghostbusters, King Kong, Taxi Driver, Wall Street – there was one film that left an indelible impression on me: 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan, starring a relatively new singer called Madonna. Blurs of yellow as taxis speed by plumes of steam rising from the streets towering skyscrapers and ubiquitous hotdog carts – cinema has made all of these things both expected and iconic. New York is a city that feels thrillingly familiar from the first moment you walk its streets. It was only fitting that I swooped into JFK on a Virgin flight – not because it was my maiden voyage over the bright lights of New York, but because the first time I arrived here, nearly a quarter of a century ago, I had only one thing on my mind: Madonna.

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