NYC & Venice: Sisters Forever

Some of you may be familiar with the so-called Sister Cities concept, the idea that certain cities share enough qualities to make them sibling-like entities. This movement began, like so many global initiatives, after World War II, and is run by a group called Sister Cities International. It might not come as a surprise to you that NYC's main sister cities are, among others, London, Beijing, Cairo and Madrid, big international cities all, that set the world's socioeconomic and political agendas.

Makes sense. But I have a different take: if NYC has a real bosom-like sister city, then it can only be one place -- Venice.

Dig this. 

Right now I'm reading (and also watching the Netflix show) about Marco Polo, the famous 13th century adventurer. In 1271, at the age of 17, he traveled from his hometown of Venice deep into the wild world of the Mongol Empire. This was the largest land empire in history to that point, swallowing up all of Mongolia and China and much of what became the Russian Empire (and later the Soviet Union, etc.). Marco spent two decades in service to the empire's great ruler, Kublai Khan. Marco's duties took him all over China, Mongolia, and Asia, including modern day Indonesia and Japan. He was one of the world's first global citizens and his book Travels set imaginations ablaze of distant worlds to be discovered (this book became Christopher Columbus' inspiration and personal bible). Without Marco Polo, history would have unfolded very differently.

And why did Marco hike across Asia, the so-called Silk Road, and into history? What motivated him? 

Money. Business. Trade. Marco came from a family of merchants in a city of merchants (The Merchant of Venice anyone?). 

Unlike other great cities, Venice was not founded primarily as a political or military capital: it was founded for commerce. It's primary raison d'etre was economic, financial, and commercial, not domination and power. It was literally built on water to facilitate the export and import of goods. Traders from around the world could easily land in and depart from this archipelago of trade. And from Venice, Marco Polo found a new world.

Sound familiar? Remind you of someplace else?

Unlike other big international cities, NYC is not a political capital (only temporarily more than two hundred years ago). NYC is and always has been a city of business. A city of commerce, not power. A city more interested in productivity, not ruling. 

And what made NYC the New World's business capital? Same thing as Venice -- water. 

Without the vast harbor, New York would never have become a business leader and America's economic engine. Even today, in this age of airplanes and the Internet, the harbor is one of the city's greatest economic asset. Cargo and cruise ships, and all sorts of commercial vessels, come and ago every day, a whole other city floating off the waterfront. 

   

And NYC is also not only a place for business but a point of entry and a point of departure: for centuries, into the current day, people come to America through NYC and then out into the rest of the country, the Wild West, to discover their futures and fortunes. Manifest Destiny, and so on.

And so I think it's fair to conclude that NYC and Venice have more in common, are more sibling-like, than any other two cities in the world. They are cities of islands, business built on water, beloved by their inhabitants, visited by millions every year, that people come to and sometimes leave to discover the wider world, motivated by the adventurous spirit of these cities. 

They are also, not surprisingly, cities of culture (think of the Met and the Tintorettos), cities of great architecture (think of the Empire State Building and the Doge Palace), cities of lust (think of old school Times Square and Venetian Seduction masks), and cities of diversity (think Chinatown and the Jewish Ghetto). They are cities built upon imagination, yearning, ambition, personal accomplishment -- and, ultimately, hope for a better world.  

So without NYC and Venice, without the drive and determination of their people and the people they've inspired, without creating a culture where human initiative is its primary purpose, the world would be a different, lesser place. These two great cities fit each other perfectly. 

Sisters Forever. 

And I'm sure Venetian Marco Polo would have loved NYC. 

P.S. Here's all my Venice related blog posts from years past. As you can see, it's a city that's always captured this New Yorker's imagination and interest.