The filmmaker only discovered Manhattan's grip on him when he bought an estate in star-studded retreat The Hamptons, on New York State's Long Island - and hated it.
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Allen explains, "I bought a very, very beautiful house in the Hamptons, and I spent over a year fixing it up. I put in trees, I changed the roof; I mean, I did an incredible job. Then I went out there one night and I slept in it, and I never came back.
"The city is so full of chaos, and the chaos is, for many people, pleasurable. Recenty I was living in a sublet on Madison Avenue, and every night you would hear ambulances and sirens. It was truly a lullaby."