Alfred Kazin’s piece, A Walker in the City, made me think about many things he discusses in relation to my own life in New York City. My favorite line in the piece is “I was of the city but not in it.” I relate to this line 100% because I’ve always felt that way about where I lived.
Growing up in Brooklyn, it’s not a suburb or the city. It’s sort of an in-between borough. I don’t know much about Queens, Staten Island, or the Bronx, but it seems to me that each place has its own distinct rhythm and pace in their respective atmospheres. I never knew whether I was actually from New York City because I wasn’t from Manhattan nor have I ever lived there, and Brooklyn is no Manhattan.
Once I got older and begun noticing how different other places are, which are not even that far away from the 5 boroughs, I started to get a sense of how unique New York City really is and how different this place is from any other. New Jersey, even in its busiest towns is still nothing like the city, and by city I mean all 5 boroughs. Long Island is almost the same as Jersey to me.
This led me to believe that there’s no way that you’re not from New York City whether you’re from Manhattan or any other borough. The people in New York are so different from people anywhere else in the world, and they can be spotted in any other place simply by starting a conversation with them.
The thing that makes New York so inspiringly unique is the people in it and I think Kazin meant exactly that when he talked about all the different people and neighborhoods that exist here.