What is the importance of New York City in the nonfiction book, The White Album?

New York City is featured sporadically throughout the book of essays as representing the 'East' of America and also the tense and high-minded world of literature, media and high society. During her travels in the essay 'On The Road' New York becomes a principle location and Didion describes how fads in behavior and in affection (lapidary apathy, or the politics of joy) control the elite circles of New York Society, and how in many ways New York still represents the principles of Elitism, Culture, and Tradition in the American Dream.