ENG 2150: Writing Through New York

Having spent the majority of my time here and in Ecuador growing up, I come to realize New York City is not the grand city it pretends to be. I had a lot of fun growing up here as a kid and loved going to the local park everyday during the summer to have massive water gun fights with everyone. Still I feel it would be wrong to describe New York as this amazing place where dreams can come true, if you try hard enough. I believe that this city houses, figuratively speaking, both the greater good and the greater evil of our world. Like Fuller notes that those of us unfortunate enough to live a decent life should be “preserved” from the affairs of the upper class and political campaigns/movements.  Fuller is not implying the rich stop helping the poor, on the contrary, he is asking them to eliminate this “shameful evil” from their charity and actually help the poor progress.

New York is place where nothing is as it seems and everything is permitted, granted you have the resources.  Our city is merely a mask though, a place is only a place and it is often the medium for some other person or party. However what makes New York so different is that there is not just one person or party that can accurately represent us as a whole. Every block contains a mixture of races and ethnicity. Just as this upper class can bring out the evil of our city; everyone else, and maybe even in some cases upper class people, can bring out some good.  I have seen people of all sorts do both good and bad things here in New York, but I feel that New York is changing and becoming a better place to live. There are definitely a lot of people that go out of their way to help and even teach others anything and it is when I am exposed to this type of behavior that I have hope.

New York City has always been a home to me. Despite it’s crowded streets and some unwelcoming residents on the subway, I have always and will always love this city. I can’t completely disagree with some of the unwelcoming residents of this city because I can be one on some occasions. It’s true some tourists do get out of hand and can get on my nerves. However, I don’t think I’ll ever want tourists to stop visiting New York. I think they are a part of this city that makes it so unique. If it weren’t for the tourists, I doubt New York City would be making as much money as it is now.

I’ve realized that New York City is not all that great to some people. Some think it is a complete dump and others think it is a treasure. Obviously, I think my opinion overrules all, well not really. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t have the right to tell another person that they are looking at the city wrong and that their opinion is completely wrong. This also goes for writings about New York City, especially from those of the 1700s-1900s. Since I wasn’t there to see how this city looked like during those time periods, I don’t think I can state that the writer’s descriptions are wrong. I guess every New Yorker just happens to be really offensive when it comes to defending this city.

Growing up in NYC, I realized that a person could never be bored living in a place as amazing as New York. I have lived in New York my entire life, and yet I can proudly say that I can always find places I have never been to. I hadn’t really ever put any thought into how exciting the city really is, until I met my friend Nina, who has grown up in Long Island but now has a dorm in the city. When she first moved to the city, she was so excited and would tell me things she discovered every day.

I remember how she hated the subway at first and was like “How do you stand so close to strangers, doesn’t it scare you?”  Me, I am used to being squished next to strangers in the morning commute to school, so for me it’s no problem, it’s one of the things you learn to get used to in New York.  To an outsider, the subway system is complete chaos, but like Jane Jacobs said about her neighborhood, I think of the morning rush hour commute as a ballet. With hundreds of people getting on and off the train, walking in sync with one another, never missing a single beat.

What a beautiful city we live in, full of life and activity! No matter how long you live here for there will always be something new to go see. The city changes just as fast as we do, and sometimes, it seems, even faster. Just as your about to see that new exhibit its gone, the day before you make your reservations to the new restaurant its closed for renovation. The city moves so fast without any regards for others.

Sometimes whats most interesting about the things we are waiting to do is what we are waiting for. So many reasons come up when your trying to explain why you haven’t done something but the reasons never seem to be enough. Its either the weather or the people, the time or the area , there’s always something thats not right. For me, anyways, whenever I make plans to finally go somewhere I’ve been waiting to go, nothing seems to go right. Because of these little nuances we complain and cancel and lose sight of whats really important, the experience your about to have.

I’ve been living in New York my whole life and still there is so much I still want to see. This weekend, after reading the pieces by Riis and Fuller, I couldn’t help but think about what I would write about if I was an author. I think if I were to write about New York I would write about all of the things I’m still waiting to see. The experiences I’m looking forward to having. I would write about that, because that is my New York, always changing always living always free.

I have always been enjoying moving. Whether it is moving the furniture in my room or moving to a different house, I loved the sense of living in a new environment, taking time to get used to it and to learn the new aspects of it. Moving to America when I was only 8 years old seemed scary. People of different language scared me the most. However, moving to the ideal foreign place, NYC, excited me. As I grew older and learned to explore new places, I couldn’t have ask for a better place to be.

New York city is a place for all different kinds of mood I may be in, whether I am insecure, depressed, furious, nostalgic, excited, etc. I can either surround myself with people or choose to be alone in a small cafe around the corner. That’s what I love about NYC. I feel as if I can satisfy my needs here. You can experience food, entertainment, people, different cultures, and the technology all in one place.

As people say, New Yorkers may be rude. But maybe other southern states, particularly, may be too nice. New Yorkers are all always in a rush to get things done, go to places, meet people and to go home. Anyone speed walking in the city is a New Yorker and those who take pictures every five steps walking in a slow pace is likely to be a tourist. However, as well as the people living the lives of New Yokers, the tourists makes a great part of New York. If it wasn’t for the interest and love for this city, it wouldn’t be this famous.

I can write a whole book on why I love New York and why I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Walking down the street knowing that everyone has their own story to tell, I never feel alone. All the small conversations that I have on the streets or on the great transportation, keeps me open minded to the new parts of New York. No one can possibly know all of New York.