Category Archives: A.J. Liebling

AJ Liebling

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Critic Philip Hamburger has described Back Where I Came From as a “love letter to the City of New York.” Do you agree or disagree? If so, how and why does Liebling express his views? What techniques does he use as a reporter/writer?

 

I agree that Back Where I Came From is a love letter to the city of New York. The style that Liebling exhibits is very much like the pace and lingo of a New Yorker, and he admits to not having anything other than his New York roots to turn to. Many of the things he mentions about the city, whether it be the undertaker or tummler, Liebling describes people that make up the New York culture. Its sense of timelessness makes it something that can be referenced in todays society, even though the piece was published in 1938.

By describing people through their routines and how they associate with other people, Liebling is able to draw the description that allows him to describe characters that define New York City culture. The people he writes about are more than just their name and their niche in the community; they are all symbolic of what makes New York City so busy and rich in culture.

A.J. Liebling

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Critic Philip Hamburger has described Back Where I Came From as a “love letter to the City of New York.”

Do you agree or disagree? If so, how and why does Liebling express his views? What techniques does he use as a reporter/writer?

I agree. In a way Liebling isn’t writing to uses readers but the embodiment of new York itself the that can read it and if we are one of the three types of New Yorkers in a way we can somehow communicate it to the spirit of New York. The writing talks about the New York he grew up in fondly retelling the memories like one would retell a story of their summer as a child. Or good memories of ones childhood.

A.J. Liebling

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Critic Philip Hamburger has described Back Where I Came From as a “love letter to the City of New York.” Do you agree or disagree? If so, how and why does Liebling express his views? What techniques does he use as a reporter/writer?

Philip Hamburger is correct when he describes “Back Where I Came From” as a “love letter to the City of New York” since he goes into precise detail about all aspects of New York. He clearly has paid a great deal of attention to the tiniest things that make up the city, making it easy to infer that he has a great passion for the city. Liebling goes into detail with the description of buildings, daily tasks of New Yorkers, as well as using street numbers and landmarks to give his readers a precise location of the place he’s bringing to life with his words. From the details Liebling provides, he definitely uses techniques of imagery and scene in order to bring life to his “love letter to the City of New York.”

Liebling

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I agreed that Back Where I came from was like a love letter to New York. What really struck me most–as with other New York-centric readings we’ve had–is that I couldn’t tell when the book was written. I was really shocked when he mentioned his father working in the early 1900s, and when I found out the book was published in 1938; I could’ve sworn it was written at least two decades later.

I think that’s what makes most like a love letter. A love letter is something that transcends the centuries–even if it was written 200 years ago, most people reading it in 2015 can probably understand it and the sentiment behind it. Liebling achieves this same timelessness with his book because the people he profiles and the places he writes about really capture the spirit of New York City, and illustrates that the city remains the same at heart even as the years go by.

Back Where I Came From

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I agree that Liebling’s, “Back Where I Came From” is like a love letter. Through his description of New York and the people here, you can tell it is a place he truly loves. He talks about growing up here and says there is nothing better than New York and the people here. To him the women in New York are the most beautiful, and he can not compare New York to anywhere else including his friends travels. He truly made me feel as a reader that there is no place like New York. This is a very opinionated statement to make which is why I agree that this is very much like a love letter.

Back Where I Came From

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I agree that Back Where I came From is a love letter to New York City. It expressed things that I could relate to being from New York myself, and although some of us don’t always stop and think of how great our City is, we know why it is great if someone asked. Liebling is very comparative in order to emphasize on what he is trying to say. When you compare something to something else it creates a visual on something you can’t see upfront. Also Liebling sometimes uses the comparative to stress something that could not probably compare to New York for example when he says “I always think of back where my friends came from as one place, possessing a homogeneous quality of not being New York.” He is comparing and thinking of where his friends are from and looks at New York to say it does not compare, there is nothing like it. Relating to love with someone else it is like the only thing you see, like New York is to Liebling.

Where I Came From- A.J Liebling

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I agree with Philip Hamburger. Liebling’s Back Where I Came From is like a double edged sword. Bittersweet yet tangy, honest yet jokey, lovely yet dreadful. He does not hold back and pushes the envelope and includes  pain with a mixture of sarcasm and wit. Liebling loves his city, but he isn’t afraid to call problems out. He isn’t afraid to expose the agony that comes with living in such a big city. I love how Leibling compares the city to a “complicated Renaissance clock” or when he says “A man lives on a street until the mayoralty grows over him like patina.” These statements  are examples of how fast and forgetful NYC can really be.

 

Liebling

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Liebling’s “Back From Where I Came From” can be described as a love letter to New York. He uses description of New York to show this. Through his slight criticism of people and places other than New York,it is obvious that he has a fondness of the city he grew up in.  Further, he says that there is nothing better than New York and the people who live here. He profiles various New Yorkers, showing their diversity and individualism.

Where I came from

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I agree it is like a love letter. Leibling expresses how he feels about New York. He compares it to places his friends travels and feels like no other places has the same quality. It’s just not New York. He talks about the people, saying New York women are the most beautiful in the world. As a reporter the technique he used was chronological. He told us the history of him living there, of his dad living there as well. The business his father owned and of the origin of the dialect locals spoke.

Liebling Response

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I have to agree with Philip Hamburger that much like most of what we’ve read in class this semester, “Back From Where I Came From” by AJ Liebling is in deed a love letter to New York.

He describes New York as a microcosm that can function regardless of what is happening around it, and New York is even made up of multiple microcosms in itself that can function independently, as Liebling says “they live and die oblivious of the worlds around them”. They often clash with one another, and feed off of one another, but never depend on one another.

Liebling argues that there is simply no one better than the native New Yorker. No one speaks better, no one looks better (“New York women are some of the most beautiful in the world”), and while I’m not sure I can agree with those two statements, I see what Liebling is saying, that there is simply no place like New York.