Blogging the soul of the world's greatest city. Feel free to comment!
The New York Spirit is hard to define -- it's a huge, multivariate thing.What is it?It's impossible to sum up precisely, hard to add it up into some kind of understandable equation. But when you walk this city's streets, traverse it via bus, subway, taxi or car, read about it in the newspaper, books, or magazines, watch it on TV or in the movies or listen to it on the radio, or just talk your fellow New Yorkers, you know there is some kind of special inexhaustible energy here that perennially exists within its people.
Perhaps you could say that the New York Spirit is the sum total of its eight million plus residents' spirits. But it's even bigger than yet. It is, in many ways, about what we just celebrated this weekend: freedom. People being free to be who they are and not being ashamed about it. And also being free to learn more, discovering new things about themselves, no matter how long they've lived here.
Just look at today's New York Times. The legendary writer Gay Talese writes about his first Circle Line trip around Manhattan and waxes nostalgic about the city and times he remembers and cherishes.
And then there's the story about the Hasidim in Williamburg, Brooklyn. As this article observes, it's like a piece of the 19th century lovingly preserved. The Hasidum live and worship there much as they did more than a hundred years ago, their traditions still very much intact. In NYC, we try to preserve our city's architecture. The Hasidim in Williamsburg have preserved their way of life, their culture, right in the heart of the most modern city in the world. Sometimes time leaves places behind. This place has left time behind. Only in New York (and perhaps certain parts of Pennsylvania)!
Then there's the touching story of a guy named Short Al, a frequent caller to the sports radio station WFAN. When he stopped calling, fans of The Fan became worried and tracked him down. Fortunately he's okay. Who says this town is so big?
Plus the crown of the Status of Liberty has been re-opened since 9/11. No, the terrorists will never win.
And today is an anniversary in the history of the NYC spirit. For 20 years ago tonight, the pilot episode of a comedy series set in New York premiered to very little fanfare. Its network, NBC, had so little faith that it would ever be a success that it scheduled the pilot in the summer and didn't commit to any new episodes until the next year. Called "The Seinfeld Chronicles", it was a weird little show about a stand-up comedian and his loser friends on the Upper West Side. The show was half sitcom, half stand-up, an odd little hybrid. At a time when family and work place shows were all the rage, this show seemed like a proverbial odd duck on the TV landscape. But its creators were sure that there was something in this show that could make it a good one. They weren't sure what it was quite yet but they were going to work hard and try to find it.
And that, basically, is what the New York Spirit is all about.
Nice post. For a moment, I forgot about my hectic day to think about my favorite place in the world...thanks
Please keep it civil, intelligent, and expletive-free. Otherwise, opine away.
Nice post. For a moment, I forgot about my hectic day to think about my favorite place in the world...thanks
ReplyDelete