By Stephanie Simon

February 14, 2011

 

Australian-born composer Michael Ress likes lots of places, but he loves his adoptive home the best. Yes, he loves Manhattan. And he wrote a song to prove it.

 

“Everything that Manhattan is, in such a tiny area, all the experiences, all the wonderful things this city has to offer,” Ress says. 
 

Ress lives on the Upper East Side, but the song is dedicated to the whole borough from Harlem to Times Square to Downtown and many places in between. He's also created three videos of the song.

 

“So what you do first is the classic rendition,” says Ress of the videos. “[That is the] one that is done in the more typical New York, Sinatra style.

 

For the second version of the video, he went into Times Square and got New Yorkers and tourists alike to sing-a-long.

 

Version three features his son, Lucas.

 

“He heard it and he's been singing the song,” says Ress. “And he said, ‘Daddy, I think we should do an “I Love Manhattan Kids".’ And I think he's an absolute genius. It's fantastic.”

 

People can watch all three versions online at ILoveManhattan.org and vote for their favorite. Ress hopes the winner will become an anthem for Manhattan.

 

“I think to make it official is to have it performed at a major public event. And I’ve reached out to the council people and the New York City government. Let's perform it live and get all New Yorkers singing along,” says Ress.

 

He already has the support of his City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin. She's tweeted and posted on her Facebook page about the song, encouraging people to listen, vote and adopt it as their theme song.

 

“One of the reasons people live here and come here is because of our arts, because of our culture,” says Lappin. “Be it a cabaret or a piano player in a bar to a Broadway show, and this celebrates that. And it highlights that and that's really a wonderful thing for the city.”

 

And since he gets a shout out in the song, Ress hopes Donald Trump will also get onboard.

 

So clearly Ress loves Manhattan, but how does he feel about the rest of the boroughs? Well he says they're next on his list.

 

In the meantime Ress hopes people will listen, vote and most importantly, sing-a-long.