In this blog post, I want to talk about “A Walker in the City” by Alfred Kazin. It is a pretty interesting reading. The use of description throughout the reading is amazing. The way he describes all he sees on his train ride into New York City. I think he was successful in persuading me to think the city was a foreign place for a moment. I’m sure Brownsville is not too far from the city, but the way Kazin describes the train ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan seems like it is really far. For a second, I forgot he was in Brooklyn.
It’s interesting how he describes where he lives. He says, “We were the end of the line. We were the children of the immigrants who had camped at the city’s back door, in New York’s rawest, remotest, cheapest ghetto, enclosed on one side by the Canarsie flats and on the other by the hallowed middle-class districts that showed the way to New York.” It’s funny because Brooklyn is probably the total opposite of this description, excluding some areas. If Kazin saw Brooklyn today, he would be extremely surprised. I feel like he wouldn’t think Manhattan was a foreign city, but more like Brooklyn’s neighbor. However, the way he describes his neighborhood makes me think that he wouldn’t like the newer Brooklyn. He talks about all the sights he sees on the train ride and wonderful parts of Brownsville which aren’t present today. If Alfred Kazin lived in present-day Brooklyn, would he have talked about Manhattan as a foreign city?