When its 100 degrees in New York, it's 72 in Los Angeles. When its 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it's still 72. However, there are 6 million interesting people in New York, and 72 in Los Angeles.

Neil Simon’s quip contrasts Los Angeles’s famously mild, steady weather with New York City’s climatic extremes, then pivots to a cultural judgment: New York’s density and friction produce a far larger supply of “interesting people.” The joke depends on the double use of “72”—first as a temperature, then as a tiny headcount—suggesting that comfort and predictability can come at the cost of variety, intensity, and character. It also reflects a long-running East Coast/West Coast rivalry in American arts and entertainment, where New York is cast as gritty and stimulating, Los Angeles as pleasant but homogenizing.