The free city! no slaves! no owners of slaves!
The beautiful city, the city of hurried and sparkling waters! the city of spires and masts!
The city nested in bays! my city!
The city of such women, I am mad to be with them! I will return after death to be with them!
The city of such young men, I swear I cannot live happy, without I often go talk, walk, eat, drink, sleep, with them!
-Walt Whitman, “Mannahatta”
I spent three long days in Manhattan and Brooklyn, which was enough time to do the following:
* Arrive on a Peter Pan bus from Boston after an initially ordinary journey that deteriorated when the driver took an off-highway foray into the streets of the Bronx, subjecting us to 90 minutes of stop-and-go jerkiness and his own maniacal road rage.
* Discover that the threat of blogging is a formidable weapon of the passive aggressive house guest (thank you RT, KT, and most especially L!)
* Drink a fair amount of beer in various thematic Manhattan and Brooklyn bars, including a beauty salon, a Polynesian hut, a summer camp, and a bar with a bocce ball court.
* Get lost in SoHo, almost on purpose. All around me, cranky tourists swarmed the streets in unfathomable heat and haze, retreating into the polar-conditioned stores for respite. I felt bad for them. They journey to New York, shell out astronomical sums of money for a hotel, upend their concept of normal daily life, and in return, New York offers the same flipping chain stores and restaurants that they have back in Peducah Falls: Ann Taylor, Armani Exchange, Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Office Depot, Victoria’s Secret… and for those who want unique New York commodities, across the sidewalk on folding tables along the curb there’s genuine curiosities like knitted chinese handcuffs, rubber ducky decor, shell jewelry, and cheap Chinese imports. Oh, the glamour of Third World sweatshop handiwork.
* Frolic at Coney Island, where I oohed and aahed over the view afforded by the Wonder Wheel and experienced whiplashy thrills on the Cyclone.
* Gaze at the Brooklyn Bridge from a park in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn while contemplating metaphysical questions such as: Is the human race essentially good? Is pride more dangerous than greed? Are we just animals with an extra-dangerous capacity for thinking and doing? Can such magnificent creation – these bridges, that forest of buildings – withstand a contradictory proclivity for destruction – that gaping hole in the skyline where the Twin Towers once presided?
Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Skyline
Chinese Store in SoHo
