I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps And find I'm a number one, top of the list ...[1]
Although New York City may be the most prominently recognized city termed "The City That Never Sleeps",[2][3] and the city's subway system never closes,[4]
the term has been applied to other cities. Below is a list, in alphabetical order, of cities that have also been called "the city that never sleeps":[5][4]
New York City's free[29]
25-minute
Staten Island Ferry operates 24 hours a day,[30] 7 days a week,
with boats leaving every 15 to 20 minutes during peak hours
and every 30 minutes at other times.[31][32]
Moreover, in many "24-hour" cities plenty of eateries are open until 3am, several clubs are open until 6am[3] and bars close 2am[4] or a few hours later.
Post COVID-19 pandemic, many 24 hour and late-night establishments have begun closing earlier. Coffee shops in particular have been left closing by 9:30PM in downtown Manhattan - previously these shops had been closing at 12:30AM commonly.[33]
The people who make use of these facilities, studies have found, are nevertheless affected by
sunrise and
sunset.[34][35]
In other words: "that most humans aren’t as influenced by Earth’s light-dark cycle as we used to be" is not fully supported; there is an observed annual shift for "a stretch of three or four months" and "then, the process reversed direction".[36]