Its hard to imagine that a city that is famous for its crime, drugs and amount of homeless people on the street could have anything good come out of it. However most people will say that New York has the best pizza. To be more specific New York has the best thin crust pizza and Chicago has the best deep dish pizza.

Little Italy and Brooklyn are the home to two of the best pizzerias in New York. Gamaldi's and Lombardi's. Both are family owned business that have good old ethics. They both use coal fired brick ovens which they swear is the secret to their smoky crusts.

Is it because New York has such a wide variety of people that allows them to best pizza. It could be also because of all the Italian-American families that reside in New York and New York City. Some of these families have been living in New York since their grandparents or great grandparents came over to the US. Some of these families took a risk and opened their own pizzeria. Some succeed and some failed. Most of them however brought their traditions out of the house and put them into their restaurants. These are the people who know that making a good pizza is a skill that requires practice. They practice making each pie as if they were painting the next masterpiece and they take pride on their work. If you do not finish your pie, some restaurant owners can get very insulted while others offer to wrap it up for you and whisk it away before you have a chance to say "No".

So is a high Italian population the reason for New York having the best pizza? There are some really good pizzerias that are not owned by Italians and they still have some great pizza. So what else is it that could make the pizza in NY the best anywhere?

Many people will say it is the hard water that does it. Any good pizza maker knows that they should use only the best flour that is high gluten when it comes to making their pizza. They mix it with tap water and some swear that the tap water is what makes the pizza so tasteful. In fact, there have been some cases where a pizzeria owner will move out of New York to say South Carolina. They think that they have found a great opportunity to open a pizzeria and boast that it is New York style pizza. However once they start making the pizza pies, they realize something is off and not right. Most of the time they draw the conclusion that they need New York City's water and begin to place frantic phone calls to friends or family to get some New York water shipped out to them.

No one knows exactly why the water works so well. It could be the chemical make up of the water that helps with the flour. Many people doubt that the water has anything to do with it. However if you were to ask any baker who lived in New York, if his pizza's come out the same as it did then. Chances are it hasn't.

New York is home to so many things, it is home to Broadway, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Saint Patrick's. We can now also say that it is home to the best pizza.