The Three New Yorks
Today, I moved to New York: The Big Apple. The City that Never Sleeps. The City So Nice They Named it Twice. It’s the beginning of a new and exciting chapter.
There’s no shortage of New York romanticism out there. EB White’s essay, Here is New York, chief among them.
I re-read the essay today on my flight, and one part that resonated is the idea of the three New Yorks:
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something ….Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.