NYC Exercise Two

Table of Contents:

 

Subway                  Manhattan Bridge

Brooklyn Tech        Ozan’s roof

Times Square        Student Meto Card

Winter in Central Park

Julia

Kodi

Summer in Central Park

 

Looking back, Winters in Central Park means childhood. It means getting dress in ridiculous thermal overalls because being healthy and goofy is better than being trendy and sick. It means hot chocolate before AND after going sledding down my family’s favorite slope, dodging other kids and pretending to make a getaway. Winter in Central Park actually means snow in New York City, the kind that isn’t black and squishes under your galoshes. It means the Alice in Wonderland statue is set on repel, because touching it means you have to thaw out your hand or surgically remove it. It means walking on the solid ice that the ducks swim on  in the spring and watching a couple of picassos make an igloo. Winter in Central Park means grabbing fistfuls of snow and hurling them at Aba only to get hit three times harder by a middle eastern who actually knows how to make them properly. Winter is a time when smokers on the street victimize their thumbs to get their lighters to work. The fresh smell of evergreens invades the streets, ready to be sold for festivities.

 

“Check the window to discover yourself in a morgue, a white sheet covering your unfortunate acquaintance. So it snowed last night. Take your eyes off this city and it will play tricks. While you are sleeping it pranks to build your character.”

 

“ This morning everything conspires against. Let down by a broken alarm clock, rebuked by work untouched last night, and now this snow.”

 

“The wind is a harsh critic, renowned for sardonic turn-of-phrase, but for once it is nice to be free of politeness, to receive the world without sugar coating.”

 

I was interested in the chapter called “Morning” because, save a couple of other chapters, it was the only conceptual chapter rather than area-specific. I thoroughly enjoyed the chapter “rain” that we read in class so I wanted to see what Whitehead had to offer about Mornings in New York. I was curious because, more so than rain, a morning in New York can have infinite possibilities. In my mind, I was sure he was going to talk about the sun rising above skyscrapers or everyone rushing to get to work. Turns out it was about the average person, conflicted with the snow that crept up on them while they were sleeping. Stylistically, Whitehead continued to write as if it were a conversation, incorporating a lot of “you’s” into his piece. Furthermore, because the ‘average New-Yorker’ is too vague of a concept, he narrated the lives of several people showing how each of them wake up, what they do, and how the snow affects them. As workers in New York, it seems that it is of mutual agreement that the snow sucks. My question to Whitehead Colson is, is it always this way? Sure the snow may steal the reliability of transportation from us, but don’t some people love the winter as it is? In my paragraph I wrote about how Snow in Central Park is one of my fondest childhood memories. Especially as a student, waking up after a snowstorm means flipping through the channels to discover whether or not Bloomberg decided to close the schools. You characterize the snow as this villanous entity but is there not beauty in it at least to an equal extent?

 

 

 

 

“On the platform there are strategies of where seats will appear when the doors open, of where you want to be when you get off, of how to outmaneuver these impromptu nemeses. So many variables, everyone's a mathematician with an advanced degree.”

 

“Has anybody ever in history copied down the phone number of the dermatologist with the sinister name.”

 

   Of all the chapters I have read so far, this has been the most true by far. I was attracted to it for the reason that the subway is something I have used on a daily basis for as long as I can remember, so I wanted to see how he personifies it and brings it to life. Though some of Colson’s chapters extend past the point of exaggeration, there truly are tactics beneath the streets of New York. People do race to get seats and no one has ever taken down Dr. Zizmor’s number. The subway is the epitome of a diversity, and I think that Colson did a great job capturing that. “He is perfectly attired save for his socks, which mark and doom him when he crosses his legs. The homeless man hopes the next car will be more generous. The musician with the broken trumpet irritates. People examine the scuff marks on their shoes when he walks by with his cup” is an example of just a few types of people you might find down below. My question for Colson is, what kind of strategies do you employ when in the subway? When i enter, I immediately head for the ends since they’re emptier. If I know the stop I’m getting off at well, I make for the end that’s close to that particular stop’s exit. Do you do the same thing? In the train, If i can’t get a seat, I lean in a corner where the elevators won’t open in the coming stops. Any tips Colson?