Time after time

It feels cliché to say that time and places can be recursive, particularly in New York, where its residents tend to develop habitual haunts.  Yet, while the physical location remains the same, all else is in flux.   As you grow, you become different, and places acquire different meanings.

Prior to moving to New York in 1992, my mom took me and my sister for a month long visit; on a practical side, she needed to sort out all the logistics of moving, but I am sure she also wanted to acclimate us to a whole new city.  We hardly spoke the language, and Hong Kong, though a close rival in population density, was much smaller to navigate.  I was around six years old at the time, and happy to explore as a tourist. 

She took us to the Metropolitan Museum, where everything was storied and historic: dusty Egyptian mummies, figurative paintings from the Renaissance, gleaming armor that extended to even the horses.  As with any trip with young children, she concluded the tour with a mandatory stop at the gift shop, where we were allowed to pick out one item.  I forget what my sister bought, but I was enamored with a print of the Flatiron Building (Several years later, I would find out that the image was painted by Samuel Halpert.)  Thinking back, I am not sure why I picked a picture of a building, as a piece of paper should seem somewhat unappealing to a six year old.  I suppose I liked the unusual shape of the building, a near impossibility that felt just as uncommon as moving halfway across the globe.

My family settled for a bit at my grandmother’s apartment in Manhattan, and then eventually in Staten island. The Flatiron Building and I drifted, each progressing on its own accord.  It cropped up in the background of my life; my wife (then girlfriend) would work nearby in 2006.  She worked long hours, and sometimes I would wait near the Flatiron until it was time for us to head home by cab.  At other times, it featured more prominently – 25 years later, my wife and I sublet an apartment on 23rd street for a few summers as the suburban doldrums got to us.  In that brief time, I enjoyed the neighborhood and its vibrancy; to be able to lounge in the plaza in front of the building and people watch was a weekend morning treat. 

I still do not fully comprehend why I picked out that print of an unknown building in a city I knew nothing about at the time.  But perhaps we choose certain things (and people, and places) that we want to grow in significance in the future, not knowing the timing or the path it will take to get there.      

Song: Time After Time, Iron & Wine

The start of something

I have been sitting on this for some time.  The excuses came too easily - work was crushingly busy, and life got in the way; in truth, I simply found writing about New York City to be extremely difficult.  The sheer amount of fodder to capture was daunting.  How could I hope to present a cohesive view that imparted my passion for New York?  Wanting to do justice to a topic so dear to my heart, I poured through books about the city.  That only solidified the challenge, as I encountered an endless queue of talented writers, ceaselessly heaping insightful observations and relatable vignettes about their experiences in New York.

Consequently, I did not write anything down for a very long stretch.  It was not until reading a particular passage in “The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone” that I felt comfortable enough to proceed:

“And when one inhabits a city, even a city as rigorously and logically constructed as Manhattan, one starts by getting lost.  Over time, you begin to develop a mental map, a collection of favoured destinations and preferred routes: a labyrinth no other person could ever precisely duplicate or reproduce.”

Certainly, there are many commonalities in our experiences in New York – it is a harsh city, an expensive one, one that pushes and demands much from its denizens.  But for those willing to tough it out, the rewards are the seemingly stolen moments; brief seconds of intimacy with the city and its strangers that are granted with serendipity.  It is these moments that make up our experience of New York City, the same moments that separates and makes our experiences distinct.

And so, I will endeavor to relay my moments, to draw out my mental map of New York City.  I hope you enjoy.  

(New York City moments are best experienced when serenaded by a personal soundtrack, so I will try to insert musical accompaniment where I can.)