“Mass hysteria is a terrible force, yet New Yorkers seem always to escape it by some tiny margin: they sit in stalled subways without claustrophobia, they extricate themselves from panic situations by some lucky wisecrack, they meet confusion and congestion with patience and grit–a sort of perpetual muddling through,” E.B White, Here is New York, 1948.
In White’s, Here is New York, he gathers that in this city the connection and separation of two lives is found eighteen inches apart.
A lawyer, a supermodel, a college student, a musician, a mother of two and a homeless person all assemble quietly and tightly side by side at 8:00 am on the 6 train uptown. One head up, one head down, one pair of eyes closed, one set of headphones in, one book, one big bag of God knows what. If they are lucky they could find these eighteen inches between them to relax their shoulders for just a few minutes before they march out into the streets and face the demands of the day.
Between these eighteen inches are endless stories of victories and tragedies. There are moments of breakdown and breakthrough. There is loneliness and fellowship. There is a constant influx of bright-eyed dreamers and the departure of beat-down visionaries.
It has been discovered that being a New Yorker comes with a different type of brain chemistry; in turn, a different way of handling life, or not handling life. Scientists have found that growing up in the city doubles the risk of psychosis and other mental health issues later in life.
“I am so stressed out I have like 5 papers due this week and my sister is about to have a baby any minute. I have so much going on and my professors are giving us a whole book to read for each class on top of regular assignments that are due. It’s like they think we have nothing else to do except schoolwork. And on top of all that I have to work too,” says Sabrina Mendizabal, student at Baruch College. For most, college is a time to soak up the last moments of freedom from real responsibility before reality smacks you in the face. However, being a student in New York City is not quite the same. There is no campus that enables you to detach from reality at most colleges in the city. You are in it along with the rest of the working masses, whether you like it or not. Megan Aronson, assistant director of the Health and Wellness Center at Baruch, notices the growing student anxiety saying, “Oh, yeah, you can feel it in the hallways. Students are so stressed out working part-time or full-time jobs, coming to a commuter campus, and taking care of families.”
While the students of New York are just trying to make it through the day, week, and year with their work done and good grades, other New Yorkers are riding the edge of their sanity in hopes of their big break.
“I don’t know how I am going to pay my rent this month. I haven’t booked any jobs. I’m freaking out, I’ve been calling all different places to find someone who is hiring but no one will call me back. I’m going to have to call my boss at the bar I used to work at and start bartending there again for some quick cash,” says model and aspiring entrepreneur Ashley Sweeny.
These moments of crisis lead me to a question. Is New York a sharp jolt into a harsh reality with no mercy for the risk takers or a world of endless opportunity and possibilities that is abounding in grace, or both?
For someone like Oren Moverman it may be perceived more as a pool of potential opportunities. “I just got really lucky. I came here from Israel and I didn’t even know how to write in English. Then I got a job at Interview Magazine as a journalist. After that, opportunities kept coming my way and I just ended up meeting the right people to help me out. I still feel like it can end at any moment. I never take it for granted. I always think my career is over and then something happens and I seem to get another chance to create something.”
Whether you feel the weight of the city life or not there is no question that it is affecting you either way.
In an international study, researchers at University of Heidelberg and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute at McGill University report in the journal Nature that people who live or were raised in cities show distinct differences in activity in certain brain regions than those who do not live in cities.
Those currently living in the city show higher activation the amygdala, the brain region that regulates emotions such as anxiety and fear. The amygdala is most often called into action under situations of stress or threat. The data suggest that the brains of city residents have a more sensitive, ‘hair-trigger’ response to such situations when compared to those living in the suburbs or more rural areas.
The study also found that people who were raised in the city during their first 15 years of life were more likely to show increased activation in another brain region called the anterior cingulate. This region is a more global regulator of stress. This change appears to be more permanent in the people who were raised in the city, than those who moved there later on in life because the change occurs during key period of development in their brain, according to Jens Pruessner, director of aging and Alzheimer’s research at the Douglas Institute. Pruessner says that this means, “you will become more alert to stress situations via the anterior cingulate for the rest of your life.”
Scientists have also found that when they compared the placentas of mothers from a busy city and a quiet rural district, they found that the city moms had far higher levels of chemical pollutants called xenoestrogens in their blood, and in that of their unborn babies. Xenoestrogens are industrial chemicals that affect our bodies in similar ways to the female hormone, oestrogen. They are found in countless man-made pollutants such as petrol fumes, and are more abundant in industrial areas than the countryside. As well as causing excess foetal growth, they have been linked to problems such as obesity, hyperactivity, early puberty, fertility problems and cancers of the lung, breast and prostate.
City life can take a toll on a human being just by breathing in the air. When you add additional stressors it may not make for a good outcome.
“Dealing with drunk people is the worst.”
Bartender, Andy Antonopolus at the Gramercy Park Hotel says, “It makes you want to drink too just so they don’t completely drive you crazy. And then staying up to 4 am and waking up hungover doesn’t help your state of mind either. The good thing is I don’t have to worry about money, haha.”
Although a life in New York can lead to mental and physical health risks E.B White believes that there is still a light at the end of the tunnel. He says in Here is New York, “The city makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin–the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled.”
That silver lining seems to be a common thread among most who come here to turn a dream into a reality.
(Insert Interview with Brian Newman. This will be a more positive perspective of a New York life that connects to the uniqueness of New York proposed by White)
When it comes to finding love New York is not known for its good track record.
“Dating in New York is like getting to Mars. Nearly impossible and we’re going for broke trying, ” says Fred Castleberry, Menswear Clothing Designer.
There may be no more expensive place to find a relationship than New York. Men like Castleberry are getting tired of spending all their money to draw that conclusion. However women feel that have just as many complaints to fire back with.
“Guys here are so delusional. They think everything revolves around them. They want you to be exactly what they hope in their mind you would be, and then they can just do whatever they want. It’s crazy. They can’t get out of their own heads to see reality,” remarks Alana Ramnarine.
Unfortunately it doesn’t help Ramnarine that “because women have been graduating from college in 30-plus percent greater numbers than men for years, there are now four women for every three men nationally in the marriage-age, college-educated dating market,” says Jon Birger, author of “Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game.” In Manhattan specifically there are 38 percent more young female college grads than male, while, “the imbalance is also exacerbated by New York’s large population of gay males. Some 9 to 12 percent of men in Manhattan are gay,” says Gary Gates, a demographics expert at UCLA’s Williams Institute.
**(I am still trying to figure out how to work in the other interviews that I have so that it seems like it is one coherent point)