We lost JFK Jr. almost 20 years ago.
We lost the old Penn Station more than 50 years ago.
Granted, they couldn't have been more different. One was a living breathing person and other was a train station. One died tragically in an accident while the other was deliberately and carefully destroyed. But this city lost them both, and we feel the lack of their presence to this day.
And what's crazy, in a way, is that their very existences were built on previous losses, previous tragedies.
In the case of JFK Jr, he was the living legacy of a president who also died tragically. In the case of the old Penn Station, it existed on land that had once housed mostly black people and who were displaced so this Guilded Age monument could be built.
In their days -- in the case of JFK Jr, the 1980s and 1990s, in the case of the old Penn Station, the first half of the 20th century -- they helped to define this city's culture. They were beautiful, glamorous, awe-inducing, inspiring -- or, as we like to say these days, aspirational.
JFK Jr. created a magazine that fused politics and pop culture together at a time when this was a novel idea and not the horror show it is today. Penn Station was a tribute to American "ingenuity and know-how", an example of what this country could achieve, building something that rivaled the great palaces of Europe -- but that was "for the people" instead of the nobility.
Both scaled the heights -- and invited us to join them.
Then they were gone, and now all we have are pictures and memories. We lost something when they went away -- a piece of our collective hope was chipped away, our faith in humanity was dented, our joy in the world besmirched. Not destroyed -- but diminished.
Certainly, this city lived to see another day -- even in the aftermath of something like 9/11 or Trump, we've survived -- but how much better could we have dealt with those horrors with JFK Jr and the old Penn Station still around?
That's what loss is all is all about -- wondering what might have been. But we go on ...
Granted, they couldn't have been more different. One was a living breathing person and other was a train station. One died tragically in an accident while the other was deliberately and carefully destroyed. But this city lost them both, and we feel the lack of their presence to this day.
And what's crazy, in a way, is that their very existences were built on previous losses, previous tragedies.
In the case of JFK Jr, he was the living legacy of a president who also died tragically. In the case of the old Penn Station, it existed on land that had once housed mostly black people and who were displaced so this Guilded Age monument could be built.
In their days -- in the case of JFK Jr, the 1980s and 1990s, in the case of the old Penn Station, the first half of the 20th century -- they helped to define this city's culture. They were beautiful, glamorous, awe-inducing, inspiring -- or, as we like to say these days, aspirational.
JFK Jr. created a magazine that fused politics and pop culture together at a time when this was a novel idea and not the horror show it is today. Penn Station was a tribute to American "ingenuity and know-how", an example of what this country could achieve, building something that rivaled the great palaces of Europe -- but that was "for the people" instead of the nobility.
Both scaled the heights -- and invited us to join them.
Then they were gone, and now all we have are pictures and memories. We lost something when they went away -- a piece of our collective hope was chipped away, our faith in humanity was dented, our joy in the world besmirched. Not destroyed -- but diminished.
Certainly, this city lived to see another day -- even in the aftermath of something like 9/11 or Trump, we've survived -- but how much better could we have dealt with those horrors with JFK Jr and the old Penn Station still around?
That's what loss is all is all about -- wondering what might have been. But we go on ...
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