I Heart NY

ode to a city

I underestimated just how good New York would be for my spirit. Four days of food, drink, theatre, museums, and an unfathomable amount of walking was just what the doctor ordered. My sister was already going up for a conference and she agreed to let me tag along. Not only did she agree to it but also suggested we take our mom. So 3 of the 4 Donohues stayed in a 500-square-foot studio in Gramercy Park. It was perfection.

During this trip it dawned on me that I’ve been coming to the city for 20 years. My first trip was in 8th grade with my sister, aunt, grandpa, and his wife. It was one of my most formidable memories. Taking a cab, seeing a Broadway show (Rent and Les Mis to be exact), going to the opera, riding the subway. I even think that trip was one of my first times on a plane.

Since then I’ve revisited about 10 times, give or take. My sister living there for 8 years meant I had to a place to crash as a young adult. As a broke 20something living in LA or Atlanta, that free place to stay was the only way I could make the trip possible. Sometimes that meant sharing a bed with her and two cats in a very literal 89-square-foot studio whose bathroom was communal and across the hall. Nevertheless every single visit has been uniquely electrifying. I find myself completely enamored by the place.

“Why are you guys so drawn to New York?” My mom asked of me and my sister several times. She herself loved the city and spending time there. Those 8 years of visiting her daughter were especially joyful. But New York, with all its drawbacks and complicated logistics, is not a place she could ever live. In fact, at the end of four days she seemed quite ready to return home. So why did this place call to her children so much?

For it having such a stronghold on my psyche, it’s hard to actually articulate the appeal. To put words to the magnetic and forceful pull it has on me.

Let’s start with the city itself, as in, it being a geographical location where people live surrounded by buildings and infrastructure and such. That part is a wonder of human achievement. It’s practically out of a sci-fi novel. This metropolis that holds millions of people, roughly 8.5 million, primarily on an island, is a feat of engineering. Long straight avenues go as far as the eye can see and are lined with skyscrapers, some of which are the tallest in the world. Construction is constant. It’s practically a metaphor: unending growth, perennially evolution. Everything seems to be reaching for the sky and beyond.

Even with all that growth, construction, and development, there’s still history everywhere. At one point we passed The Chelsea Hotel which has been a cultural epicenter over the decades housing people like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. Right around the corner from us in Gramercy Park was Pete’s Tavern, America’s oldest continuously operating bar for nearly 160 years. The American Museum of Natural History, which we spent 3 hours in and only scratched the surface of it’s 2.5 million square feet, opened its first building in 1877 with President Rutherford B. Hayes presiding over a public ceremony. Everywhere you look there are portals into the past.

Then there are the people. The people are…people. Every single type of person found on planet earth can be found in New York. Some residents were born and raised New Yorkers and will die there. Some folks just moved to the neighborhood, or even this country, in the hopes of finding something more. Visitors from every corner of the globe come to this place. One can walk through the streets and hear any and every language spoken. It’s a swirling stew of humanity where billionaires are driven in private cars on streets next to people sleeping on the sidewalk. High fashion meets I-don’t-give-a-fuck. The rich, the poor, the creative, the businessmen, and everyone in between. It’s a single point where the world meets.

The city itself plus the people in it make the whole thing feel alive. It’s as though New York is a living entity greater than the sum of its parts. I think a lot of that has to do with the way people must move about the place. It’s a walking city. It’s a bus and train city. It and everyone in it is in constant motion. In order to get anything done at all, one must be out in the world. New Yorkers and visitors alike must traverse that swirling stew of humanity and become part of it. Whether they’re chasing dreams, picking up groceries, or simply surviving, every person adds to the aliveness of the place. It’s like tightly packed molecules bumping into each other and creating friction.

This aliveness somehow translates to possibility. At least for me it does. When I walk through the streets, a bubble of excited potential forms in my gut. The friction of all those molecules, the buildings grabbing at the heavens, the history of great artists and business tycoons, light up in me a fiery what if. Perhaps it’s the purest definition of ‘magic.’

To those who’ve lived in New York, and I know some of you have, I’m aware that I sound like 98% of every idiot who visits the city for a couple of days. Somehow I’m able to know and understand such an immense place. Suddenly I’m able to pontificate over its magic. I have bestowed myself with the power to paint a beautiful picture of it, as though I grew up there. The reality is that I’m a basic tourist. I can appreciate a place when it isn’t winter and I don’t need to catch the uptown train during rush hour and I haven’t had to step over human feces on the sidewalk and I haven’t had my heart broken there and don’t need to come up with astronomical rent for a shit apartment. I get that these words might label me as a poser.

But that’s the beauty of travel I suppose. One gets to visit a place and soak in all the good it has to offer and then leave. The muck and frustration doesn’t have time to reach you before you’re back on a plane headed home. It’s like trying on a shirt or a pair of jeans. You can slip into a different lifestyle, a different scene, without commitment. It’s just a taste. And just like trying on jeans, travel affords you the opportunity to envision the person you might become in such a place. You get to ask yourself who would I be here? Who’s the person I could become?

While I may still be a tourist, I will leave you with words from some native New Yorkers. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys summed up all these feelings in their 2006 hit song Empire State of Mind. Perhaps I should go back for a listen whenever I need a dose of that expansively magical feeling that only New York City can offer.

In New York
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There's nothing you can't do
Now you're in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let's hear it for New York

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