Some New Yorkers live to get out of town in the summer , to country homes and beach rentals and European villas far from the din of this metropolis. Then there are those who wake up one sweaty morning and realize: The city belongs to us now.

This time around, the season was like many before it — just hotter, wetter, smellier, more crowded and louder. We stuck it out. We loved it. It was cooler than Paris, anyway.

New York in summer exists principally out of doors, on baked stoops or broiled sidewalks. You grab what space you can and call it your own, using radiant body heat to keep away encroachers.