E.B. White on NYC
by Sandy Ikeda
Tue, 9 Sep 2008 at 7:38 PM
Astroland is closing. The world-famous Cyclone roller coaster will stay open thanks to landmarking (more effective for individual structures than for neighborhoods), but Coney Island's days as a working-class amusement park may finally be over. Sad. Rem Koolhaas characterized Coney Island as "a fetal Manhattan," both because of its smaller but similar dimensions but more importantly because he saw many of the various amusements created there as experiments in urban fantasy.
Now, Crain's New York Business reports that "New York City gained 256,000 jobs during the last decade, despite the dot-com bust and the terrorist attacks that crippled employment in some neighborhoods" (from a report released last Wednesday by the Center for an Urban Future). The media these days brim with stories of financial crises and economic downturn, but it's what happens in our local networks — our jobs and neighborhoods — that tends to matter the most to us personally. So the Center for an Urban Future study may surprise, but not so much really if you're one of the vast majority of the local workforce who have been gainfully employed since 1998.
Just two stories about the ups and downs of this City, about which we may or, more significantly, may not be aware.
Sixty years ago E.B. White wrote, "Here Is New York," a short essay many of you probably know. He writes:
New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if the wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute.
New York then and now is like a suburban Whole Foods supermarket, chock full of stuff, 99% of which will never find its way into your shopping cart because you will ignore it or not be aware that it's there. Instead, after the juice and eggs, you will zero in on those tidbits that over the years you've learned you can't live without. Try to pay attention to much more than a fraction of what's available and you'll hit sensory overload — and waste a lot of time.
And as I write this, they're shooting a scene from an upcoming Muppets movie, "Letters to Santa," just down the street from my apartment. (Last year it was George Clooney and Brad Pitt, this time Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.) Some noise of unloading this morning, a small crowd of crew and spectators this afternoon, traffic backed up a bit now and then throughout the day. By this evening, they'll pack up and be gone.
You'll never have known they were ever there.
Culture of Congestion Homepage
|
Print
Send
RSS
