Sky

 

Like most New Yorkers, I have something of a love / hate relationship with this city.  I spent most of my childhood and adolescence in the New York City suburbs, and for me "The City" was the center of all glamor, sophistication, and excitement: I absolutely could not wait to move to Manhattan myself, and it was the one thing I knew without a doubt that I would do when I graduated from college.  As a teenager, I could (and did) entertain myself just by walking all day in Manhattan, from Grand Central Station down to the Woolworth Building, where my father used to work, and then all the way up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and so forth.  Every neighborhood seemed exciting and full of potential to me, and I looked long and hard at the people passing who actually seemed to live there, wondering about their daily lives.  

 

When I finally moved into "The City" in 1997, my life wasn't all roses - I was suffering from the typical sense of identity crisis that comes from leaving college and starting a boring administrative job - but I definitely loved living in Manhattan.  However, fast forward to years nine, ten, eleven of living in the city, and I definitely found myself battling feelings of constant claustrophobia that have never fully left me since... that feeling of being always loomed over by tall buildings, only seeing the sky in irregular oblong pieces because of surrounding skyscrapers, getting very little sunshine during afternoon hours because of shadows from said skyscrapers, and then the usual traffic noise, constant construction, crowds of people at rush-hour... in short, all the things that I'm sensitive about when non-New Yorkers criticize the city ("oh I hate New York, it's so dirty and crowded and noisy and stressful") perhaps because I secretly feel that way too, sometimes.

At the same time, of course, when I visit a smaller American city or the suburbs, I realize that I'm a New York City addict.  I think "wait... but I'd need a car?  And if it started pouring on my way home at eleven at night I wouldn't be able to duck into a deli for an umbrella?  And what if I feel like a pint of Haagen Daaz coffee ice cream at midnight?"  You get hooked like that.  And besides, in cold and drab winter months, there's something to be said for the cheerful shop windows, the bright bustle of the department stores, the reassuring sight of other humans with some place to go.

Anyway... all this to say that I was having one of those claustrophobic days on Friday, but then... I met some friends for dinner at Brighton Beach.  Yes, it took an hour to get there, but finally: THE SKY!  I felt as though I could breathe for the first time in days.  

Why is it so easy for us Manhattan-dwellers to forget that there's way more to New York City than the crowded island at its center?  It's good to keep in mind that sometimes an antidote to urban claustrophobia can be just a subway ride away.  And Brighton Beach is fun!  International grocery stores... restaurants... boardwalk...sky...

Comments

[Melissa]

Wow, those photos turned out very nice!

[Daniel Reich]

Dear Elizabeth,

I am definitely a New Yorker and I hate New York. You really are a New Yorker too. I do wish I had made it Brighton Beach as well. The picture at the bottom with the lampposts looks nearly 19th Century.

Your nocturnal brother,

Daniel

[Awake]

To Melissa, I'm glad you think so!

To Daniel, It IS sort of 19th century-looking, especially the lampposts. It's just missing the women in S-shaped corsets and enormous hats. I will let you know next time I'm thinking of going out there...