New York New York

There have been several odes to the city of New York in the form of articles, short stories, documentaries and feature films and I recently (re-)read one by John Steinbeck. I had always thought of Steinbeck as "West Coast" writer probably because of his more famous work "Grapes of Wrath" and his association with Salinas, CA, that is until I received as a gift a much thumbed through copy of a selection of his writings by Penguin called "America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction" which includes a piece called "Making of a New Yorker". This piece is masterful in its composition and feels more like a short-story than anything else and much like any of Steinbeck's works is more an ode to people, in this case New Yorkers rather than to the city itself.

I bring up Steinbeck because reading his work has prompted me to keep writing in this blog at a time when the few blogs I read seem to be afflicted by some sort of drought. As possibly Greenspan or Bernanke might comment, we can say for sure that the "frothiness" around blogs has dissipated.

Back to the city of New York, the one salient feature of New York among all the world's cities is its clear geographical definition. New York city although for administrive purposes consists of the five burroughs - Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island; it is the island of Manhattan that is usually thought of as New York City.

Thus, it is easier to think of and comment on a city that is geographically confined. In contrast is the city of Bombay back home in India which has spread so far and wide that it is unclear where Bombay ends and the smaller city of Pune starts; Pune officially being a good 100 miles away.
Manhattan and as a result New York City is far smaller than most people who have not been to the city might assume. One can walk the length and the breadth of Manhattan in one day. To make such a statement of any other city is not possible precisely because it is not clear in those cases what the length and breadth of the city are.

When I have seen the city on numerous occasions from the top of the Empire State Building, I try to imagine how it would look from the air and I think it would look like a narrow long area of a Porcupine or a Hedgehog's hide with irregular quills and with a smaller rectangular area in the middle where there are no quills. The quills being the skyscrapers and the rectangular patch being Central Park.

The tall buildings create a tunnel effect and so the cool winds that stream through Manhattan can be equally refreshing in summer as vicious during the winter. My amazement at the city is much the same as a kid's awe at discovering an ant hill. So many people, so much activity, so much prosperity contrasted with poverty and homelessness inside this what effectively turns out to be a tight cuboidal space. Vendors, cultures, visitors, limousines, ads, buildings, people and more people - many in suits, many in the coolest fashion trends, many with cameras, cats and dogs, filth and garbage, sewers and puffs of steam arising from the sewer grates with the shudder and clamour of subway trains claterring so close beneath one's feet, buildings and concrete, smokers and cops and and the sounds of sirens eerily far off yet so close. So much orderly chaos and chaotic order. Such ease of navigation among the grid like streets if only you knew where you were going. A sudden turn and you're in an alley fresh prey for a mugging. Another turn and you're gawking up at marble lions guarding the majestic Public Library. A few blocks down are Van Goghs and Rembrandts scattered around. Down the steps of the museum and you are in a park filled with sunbathers and people playing frisbee.

At some times, it feels like a crowded room where everyone is going about their own business and ignoring everone else. Whether it is the intensity of the work, the neccessity of living in a city or a studied indifference practiced so often as a defense mechanism that it becomes part of oneself - I might never know since I never got to live or work in the city itself.

When I was in grad school on Long Island, I made it a point to take the train into Manhattan once almost every month or two and it was a refreshing change. Now that I'm in the midwest, I try to do the same with Chicago and while Chicago is a wonderful city by its own right and does some in creating the sensation, it doesn't come close to New York in the way I get the sense of adrenaline and the heart thumping as I enter the city. Every time I went into Manhattan, I liked to stop for a few minutes in St.Patrick's cathedral on 5th Ave just because it provided such a marked quite from the outside. Chicago downtown feels like the inside of St. Patrick's cathedral on Fifth Avenue.