This week, someone drove a truck into a bike lane full of bikers and runners, killing 8 and injuring a dozen others. This random act of violence in such a public space is meant to make you think that it could happen anywhere at anytime. It’s meant to put fear into people’s hearts. But I wanted to take the time to post a message up: you ****ed with the wrong city.

I grew up in New York . We build our lives on pushing through the muck. Our entire lives in this s***hole have prepared us to take a punch on the chin and move forward.

In high school, I was assaulted twice and mugged once on the subway back from school. You know what I did right after those happened? I moved to the other side of the train. I went home. And then I went back to school the next day. Once, I saw a friend walk into the deli bleeding from being stabbed. He chatted with a friend and bought something before we walking over to the hospital. I’ve walked past bodies under a sheets while transferring stations. Every one of us has a story about being a witness to or victim of some kind of crime. All of us have these stories. We collect them. But you know what we all did? We kept going. It’s what we do as New Yorkers. we shrug it off because we got s*** to do and s*** doesn’t get done by sitting around and being afraid.

Every day we walk through chaos and tragedy and we keep walking to our crappy internships and tiny apartments. I’m talking about rivers of black slush, air made of hot garbage, Brooklyn hipsters. We just keep going. A coke fiend can be snorting a line next to us on the 6 train and we won’t even change our seats. We can hear gunshots or sirens outside and we won’t even go to the window to check anymore. You can attack our public spaces and we’ll be there tomorrow, because **** you, that’s why.

I’m mourning this week, and praying hard for these families, but if you think this is gonna scare New Yorkers, you don’t know who you’re messing with. We survived 9/11. We survived Sandy. We’re surviving the Jim Dolan Knicks. Terrify us? Us? Get the **** outta here.