As a New Yorker, I can tell you that generally the city is a great place. It is way too liberal, but I usually try to think of that as an unfortunate downside, rather than the whole picture. I say any place that has Central Park, The Metropolitan, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Bronx Zoo, etcetera can't be all bad.
New York used to be a crime-ridden cesspool, but it's improved tremendously over the past decade or so. That's mainly on account of Rudy Giuliani. Yes, he's a social liberal (that's what made him electable here) and I wouldn't really want him in power in the federal government, but he was great as mayor.
Hopefully, as time goes on, the Big Apple will evolve away from the left-wing ideology. Oddly, growing up here, I never really thought of it as "liberal", not the way I think of, say, LA of Frisco as liberal. This isn't a place in which liberal ideas are generated or even really expounded upon; they are just accepted with an cynical inertness. Maybe that will change one day. To me, a conservative NYC would be nothing sort of a paradise.
Livonia Ave. in 1976 was the flat out scariest street I've ever been on for any reason. Now, after Rudy there are garden apartments in the area.