Final Essay

Dear Prof. Chessman,

I sent you an email with this essay as a word doc because I've experienced several complications which restricted me in doing so on this page. Thank you for your understanding. The essay appears as a blog post here:

Ido Lechner

Professor Nolan Chessman

English

16 July 2013

                   

We are all Buildings   

I’m a tourist in a dream. Every step off the corner invites me with smells of crisp margarita slices. Layered in decaying gum and fresh dog poop squishing and squashing beneath the unsuspecting, one must tippytoe across the pavement with the form of a ballerina in the hopes of reaching the next corner unsmeared. This conscious effort has plagued the venturer since the invention of New York, to intake the limelights and become one with canine fecal matter, or to gauge the path ahead and miss out on the city entirely. When the sun rises, eight million worms awaken every day discovering their apple anew. This rediscovery comes in the form of bakery grand openings, exploring the crown, wings, or toes of the city, or even observing the passage of seasons.

In due time, the leaves will crunch their last goodbyes beneath the soles of Converse and Timberlands. The trees will be naked, offering no protection from the armada of snowflakes that wage war with our coats. Fascinated by the sight of our breath, we miss out on the groundhog that peaks its head cautiously like an emerging periscope. Before we know it, it is safe to remove our cotton blend and nylon layers. As the frisbee navigates its way to a receiving hand, we reminisce on the last summer. We have now made a full circle; a whole year has gone by.

    One year wiser, we have seen the city birth new stores in place of older ones, refurbishing itself like a culture of bacteria. That is to say of course that we both have witnessed the stores having died and rebuilt in the first place. Illustrating this concept, Colston Whitehead says in his Colossus of New York, “No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey's, or That used to be the Tic Toe Lounge.” (3). A tremendous novel, Colossus of New York tackles the existential-esque topic that New York, regardless of being a city, is subjective. Both in experiences and understanding, no two people have the same New York in mind, splitting the city into millions of fragmented conceptions. My understanding of New York is built upon my ever growing discoveries and experiences I’ve had in my 18 years as a resident of the world’s greatest metropolis.

    I grew up right in Upper East Side Manhattan. Childhoods in New York are arguably better than almost any other place in the world, in that there’s so much to do at any time in the year. Perhaps the most notable season in my youth is winter, for winter to me means Central Park. It means getting dressed 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 death; 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 snow-chitects 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, chopped up and ready to be sold for Christmas.That is what a New Yorker’s childhood is like.

    Looking back, I come to realize that winters have now taken on a whole new meaning. No longer confined to the forest on the island, winter became my taste of freedom from the jail that was high school. Ice skating, partying and manhunt, my friends and I grew up in the winter. By the time I was sixteen, I hadn’t discovered the city, I discovered what it meant to be in it. Of course, that meaning differs for everyone, given the variety in experiences one can acquire over time. In her piece Mapping, Emma Wisniewski maps her childhood in LIC, a bland and remote area save the Five Pointz, a warehouse fully decorated in masterful graffiti. To her, Five Pointz is an overlooked center of the universe, adding character to an otherwise mundane bildungsroman. She says, “I have come to think of this place as something like a rubber-band ball—the core is there, but it is what it is only because of what has built up, over time, on top”

Like her Five Pointz, Central Park was originally my ‘destination’ to grow. Ultimately however, that growth grew beyond the barriers of the park with my newfound exposure to the subway and freedom granted from my time off from school and discovery of my city.

    On a macrocosmic scale, these tales of discovery, freedom and childhood emulate the philosophical notion that reality is idiosyncratic in nature, based merely on the perceiver alone. Colston Whitehead’s belief that New York is not shared, rather exclusive to the individual, is a mutual understanding of many philosophers regarding any physical matter or concept thereof, in that the mind is paradoxically the true creator of everything it is intaking. This model of thinking predates any of us, stemming from solipsistic, nihilistic and existential thinking, among others, and is virtually impossible to invalidate. Therefore, if a tree falls in Central Park and no one is around to hear it, a tree has not fallen in central park.

    Short lived, the seasons in New York have almost nothing in common aside from their life spans. Occasionally I will get a taste of childhood in the summer when temperatures are lower than they should be, but I’m quickly reminded of my oncoming adulthood when the heat picks up again. It is easy for me to dissect my life in seasons, but the city has an infinite supply of disparate elements which compound into myself. Wisniewski argues that “The Pointz is anchored by its tags. I have never been able to figure out whether they are a byproduct of the Pointz or the raw materials that make it what it is.”(5).  With this in mind, we have to ponder, does the city truly make us who we are? There is a chance after all that all our time spent building snowmen in the park and observing the monument that is the Five Pointz is what makes the city. Then again, the two beliefs mustn't necessarily contradict one another. In my belief, the great big organism we walk on walks in us. We are the city.

    Because we are ourselves and not each other, but we are the city that bores our own unique existence, we now derive yet another piece of evidence to back Whitehead’s claims. I metrocard, therefore I am. Internalizing this realization, it is our duty to continuously construct New York. Reminisce. Perhaps your childhood belonged to the oven summers, selecting groceries where you once shopped for water balloons. Maybe your memories are more evenly distributed than mine altogether, neither triggered nor dominated by seasons at all. Stepping outside of this daydream, we realize nothing is stagnant; New York is not a constant. We are not a constant. Change is inevitable.

    Though Central Park will never change as an entity, it’s inherent meaning is a whole new Munsey’s. As a child, I was not a true New Yorker. I was not able to live past multiple Central Park’s enough to identify the aforementioned change, and I was not New York itself. In becoming attuned with our surroundings, we mold ourselves to reflect the exterior. This idea is self-evident, both in experience and observation. Consider Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind, a rags to riches story detailing one Shawn Carter’s (Jay-Z) growth in the “concrete jungle where dreams are made of.” The first verse alone, "yeah i'm out that Brooklyn, now i'm down in Tribeca, right next to DeNiro, but i'll be hood forever" illustrates Jay-Z’s growth and self discovery. To him, Brooklyn is a hood, and he is is hard-fastened to the character his childhood shaped him to be. Unlike me, he hasn’t adapted new mannerisms, but his outlook has definitely changed as indicated by later verses. He now identifies New York as a land of opportunity and he is now a true New Yorker.

If we’ve learned anything from the wisdom of a mapper, rapper, and author, it’s that we all have a center of the universe thats unique, thats make us us, that changes in the blink of eye. As mirrors with feet, we become our surroundings. As artists with hands, we sculpt the world around us. New York is a self-portrait for “eight million stories, out there in the naked” (Empire State of Mind). No one will ever see New York in the same way that I do, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Its appropriate that I sit here, by the small pond where igloo’s were once erected, in my hood, my Five Pointz, my heart, the place where I grew up.

Works Cited:

Withead Colston, Colossus of New York, N.d.

Wisniewski Emma, Mapping, N.d.

Carter Shawn (Jay-Z), Empire State of Mind, The Blueprint III, Roc Nation 2009, CD.

Draft 2

In my essay, I tackle the same concept that Colston Whitehead does, that New York City is different for everyone. I use themes of discovery, childhood and seasons to emphasize that differentiate my experiences from everyone else. I also compare Central Park to Emma Wizniewski's conception of the Five Pointz and use it to reflect on my past. Finally, I introduce a sense of philosophy to tie everything together and give clarity to the tough topic that I am attempting to evaluate.


I’m a tourist in a dream. Every step off the corner invites me with smells of crisp margarita slices. Layered in decaying gum and fresh dog poop squishing and squashing beneath the unsuspecting, one must tippytoe across the pavement with the form of a ballerina. This conscious effort has plagued the venturer since the invention of New York, to intake the limelights and become one with canine fecal matter, or to gauge the path ahead and miss out on the city entirely. When the sun rises, Eight million worms awaken every day discovering their apple anew. This rediscovery comes in the form of bakery grand openings, exploring the crown, wings, or toes of the city, or even observing the passage of seasons.

In due time, the leaves will crunch their last goodbyes beneath the soles of Converse and Timberlands. The trees will be naked, offering no protection from the armada of snowflakes that wage war with our coats. Fascinated by the sight of our breath, we miss out on the groundhog that peaks its head cautiously like an emerging periscope. Before we know it, it is safe to remove our cotton blend and nylon layers. As the frisbee navigates its way to a receiving hand, we reminisce on the last summer. We have now made a full circle; a whole year has gone by.

    One year wiser, we have seen the city birth new stores in place of older ones, refurbishing itself like a culture of bacteria. That is to say of course that we both witnessed the stores having died and rebuilt in the first place. Illustrating this concept, Colston Whitehead says in his Colossus of New York, “No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey's, or That used to be the Tic Toe Lounge.” (3). A tremendous novel, Colossus of New York tackles the existential-esque topic that New York, regardless of being a city, is subjective. Both in experiences and understanding, no two people have the same New York in mind, splitting the city into millions of fragmented conceptions. My understanding of New York is built upon my ever growing discoveries and experiences I’ve had in my 18 years as a resident of the world’s greatest metropolis.

    I grew up right in Upper East Side Manhattan. Childhoods in New York are arguably better than almost any other place in the world, in that there’s so much to do at any time in the year. Perhaps the most notable season in my youth is winter, for winter to me means Central Park. It means getting dressed 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 snow-chitects 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.That is what a New Yorker’s childhood is like.

    Looking back, I come to realize that winters have now taken on a whole new meaning. No longer confined to the forest on the island, winter became my taste of freedom from the jail that was high school. Ice skating, partying and manhunt, my friends and I grew up in the winter. By the time I was sixteen, I hadn’t discovered the city, I discovered what it meant to be in it. Of course, that meaning differs for everyone, given the variety in experiences one can acquire over time. In her piece Mapping, Emma Wisniewski maps her childhood in LIC, a bland and remote area save the Five Pointz, a warehouse fully decorated in masterful graffiti. To her, Five Pointz is an overlooked center of the universe, adding character to an otherwise mundane bildungsroman. Like her Five Pointz, Central Park was originally my ‘destination’ to grow. Ultimately however, that growth grew beyond the barriers of the park with my newfound exposure to the subway and freedom granted from my time off from school and discovery of my city.

    On a macrocosmic scale, these tales of discovery, freedom and childhood emulate the philosophical notion that reality is idiosyncratic in nature, based merely on the perceiver alone. Colston Whitehead’s belief that New York is not shared, rather exclusive to the individual, is a mutual understanding of many philosophers regarding any physical matter or concept thereof, in that the mind is paradoxically the true creator of everything it is intaking. This model of thinking predates any of us, stemming from solipsistic, nihilistic and existential thinking, among others, and is virtually impossible to invalidate. Therefore, if a tree falls in Central Park and no one is around to hear it, a tree has not fallen in central park.

    Short lived, the seasons in New York have almost nothing in common aside from their life spans. Occasionally I will get a taste of childhood in the summer when temperatures are lower than they should be, but I’m quickly reminded of my oncoming adulthood when the heat picks up again. It is easy for me to dissect my life in seasons, but the city has an infinite supply of disparate elements which compound into myself. Wisniewski argues that “The Pointz is anchored by its tags. I have never been able to figure out whether they are a byproduct of the Pointz or the raw materials that make it what it is.” With this in mind, we have to ponder, does the city truly make us who we are? There is a chance after all that all our time spent building snowmen in the park and observing the monument that is the Five Pointz is what makes the city. Then again, the two beliefs mustn't necessarily contradict one another. In my belief, the great big organism we walk on walks in us. We are the city.

    Because we are ourselves and not each other, but we are the city that bores our own unique existence, we now derive yet another piece of evidence to back Whitehead’s claims. I metrocard, therefore I am. Internalizing this realization, it is our duty to continuously construct New York. Reminisce. Perhaps your childhood belonged to the oven summers, selecting groceries where you once shopped for water balloons. Maybe your memories are more evenly distributed than mine altogether, neither triggered nor dominated by seasons at all. Stepping outside of this daydream, we realize nothing is stagnant, New York is not a constant. We are not a constant. Change is inevitable.

    When I turn the corner, I walk past the pizzeria and onto 1st avenue. Choosing to step in all the crap, I take in the sights and sounds the city has to offer. Imbued with the knowledge that I am the winters, metrocards, pigeon poop and onwards, I pick up my sculpting tools and begin to go to work. The city is my canvas and I am the paintbrush. No one will ever see New York in the same way that I do, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

New York Draft 1

I’m a tourist in a dream. Every step off the corner invites me with smells of crisp margarita slices. Layered in decaying gum and fresh dog poop squishing and squashing beneath the unsuspecting, one must tippytoe across the pavement with the form of a ballerina. This conscious effort has plagued the venturer since the invention of New York, to intake the limelights and become one with canine fecal matter, or to gauge the path ahead and miss out on the city entirely. When the sun rises, Eight million worms awaken every day discovering their apple anew. This rediscovery comes in the form of bakery grand openings, exploring the crown, wings, or toes of the city, or even observing the passage of seasons.

In due time, the leaves will crunch their last goodbyes beneath the soles of Converse and Timberlands. The trees will be naked, offering no protection from the armada of snowflakes that wage war with our coats. Fascinated by the sight of our breath, we miss out on the groundhog that peaks its head cautiously like an emerging periscope. Before we know it, it is safe to remove our cotton blend and nylon layers. As the frisbee navigates its way to a receiving hand, we reminisce on the last summer. We have made a full circle now, a whole year has gone by.

    One year wiser, we have seen the city birth new stores in place of older ones, refurbishing itself like a culture of bacteria. That is to say of course that we both witnessed the stores having died and rebuilt in the first place. Illustrating this concept, Colston Whitehead says in his Colossus of New York, “No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey's, or That used to be the Tic Toe Lounge.” (3). A tremendous novel, Colossus of New York tackles the existential-esque topic that New York, regardless of being a city, is subjective. Both in experiences and understanding, no two people have the same New York in mind, splitting the city into millions of fragmented conceptions. My understanding of New York is built upon my ever growing discoveries and experiences I’ve had in my 18 years as a resident of the world’s greatest metropolis.

    I grew up right in Upper East Side Manhattan. Childhoods in New York are arguably better than almost any other place in the world, in that there’s so much to do at any time in the year. Perhaps the most notable season in my youth is winter, for winter to me means Central Park. It means getting dressed 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 snow-chitects 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.That is what a New Yorker’s childhood is like.

    Looking back, I come to realize that winters have now taken on a whole new meaning. No longer confined to the forest on the island, winter became my taste of freedom from the jail that was high school. Ice skating, partying, manhunt, my friends and I grew up in the winter. By the time I was sixteen, I hadn’t discovered the city, I discovered what it meant to be in it. Of course, that meaning differs for everyone, given the variety in experiences one can acquire over time. In her piece Mapping, Emma Wisniewski maps her childhood in LIC, a bland and remote area save the Five Pointz, a warehouse fully decorated in masterful graffiti. To her, Five Pointz is an overlooked center of the universe, adding character to an otherwise mundane bildungsroman. Like her Five Pointz, Central Park was originally my ‘destination’ to grow. Ultimately however, that growth grew beyond the barriers of the park with my newfound exposure to the subway and freedom granted from my time off from school and discovery of my city.

    On a macrocosmic scale, these tales of discovery, freedom and childhood emulate the philosophical notion that reality is idiosyncratic in nature, based merely on the perceiver alone. Colston Whitehead’s belief that New York is not shared, rather exclusive to the individual, is a mutual understanding of many philosophers regarding any physical matter or concept thereof, in that the mind is paradoxically the true creator of everything it is intaking. This model of thinking predates any of us, stemming from solipsistic, nihilistic and existential thinking, among others, and is virtually impossible to invalidate. Therefore, if a tree falls in Central Park and no one is around to hear it, a tree has not fallen in central park.

    Short lived, the seasons in New York have almost nothing in common except for that. Occasionally I will get a taste of childhood in the summer when temperatures are lower than they should be, but I’m quickly reminded of my oncoming adulthood when the heat picks up again. Sure, I can sit all day dissecting my life in seasons, but there are other elements to this great city that make me who I am. Wisniewski argues that “The Pointz is anchored by its tags. I have never been able to figure out whether they are a byproduct of the Pointz or the raw materials that make it what it is.” With this in mind, we have to ponder, does the city truly make us who we are? There is a chance after all that all our time spent building snowmen in the park and observing the monument that is the Five Pointz is what makes the city. Then again, the two beliefs mustn't necessarily contradict one another. In my belief, the great big organism we walk on walks in us. We are the city.

    Because we are ourselves and not each other, but we are the city that bores our own unique existence, we now derive yet another piece of evidence to back Whitehead’s claims. I metrocard, therefore I am. Internalizing this realization, it is our duty to continuously construct New York. Reminisce. Reminisce. Reminisce.

Exercise 4

    Welcome to the city that doesn’t welcome you at all. Tourists flock to Times Square like flies to a light bulb, just to find themselves suffocating in a sea of like-minded people. In an endeavor to escape, they navigate the depths, only to be warded off from the noxious fumes of a territorial hobo. Gasping for air once more, they emerge from the subway to cross the nightmare that is the Brooklyn Bridge. There, they will miss the grid system back in Manhattan that made life so easy, ultimately concluding that New York isn’t as tourist-friendly as they may have thought. Welcome to the city that doesn’t welcome you at all, a place where eight million people call home.

    Despite it’s unforgiving nature, New York has something that most cities lack. That certain element, the one that makes it a factory for culture and a popular topic for movies and music alike, is its character. Take a break from the filth and pigeon poop and go visit Central Park, located in the heart of Manhattan. If brilliantly synthetic nature isn’t your style, visit the MoMa, or the Guggenheim, or the Met, or the Natural History Museum, or anywhere for that matter. With New York, you have options. It may not like you, but you will love it.

    I grew up right in Upper East Side Manhattan. Childhoods in New York are arguably better than almost any other place in the world, in that there’s so much to do at any time in the year. Summer means sports, icies off the streets and public park pools for the daring, Winter on the other hand means Central Park. It means getting dressed 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. That is what a New Yorker’s childhood is like.

    Though childhoods in New York are nothing short of amazing, growing up is not solely confined to one’s childhood. There’s a transitional stage involved which requires deep self-reflection. Aided with an open New York City, it is easy to get lost and find yourself at the same time. During my teenage years I did a lot of exploring with my friends. We scavenged the depths of Brooklyn, probed the west side river area and excitedly investigated downtown Manhattan. I went to gigs, shopped, saw movies, bowled, ice skated and more. New York is great for these kind of activities, but its true value comes out during your alone time. Hop the fence behind a staircase right by the east river on 82nd and your feet dangle right over the water as you stare out at Roosevelt island. The tides may prevent you from seeing your reflection, but I can vouch that place never stops spoon feeding your thoughts.  After this stage of discovery and gained independence, you can call yourself a true teenaged New Yorker.

     As a young adult, I am ready to tackle the world. Atop buildings that scrape the sky, I’ve stared face to face with the end of the world. I’ve successfully logged hundreds of hours beneath the pavement and I’ve experienced more culture in New York than most people do in a lifetime. I’ve tackled the rare and miniscule natural disasters, hurricanes Irene and Sandy, and even lived through a blackout which sucked the life out of the the city for a small duration of time. Individually, we are all but worms in the Big Apple, but united we are a superpowered society that never sleeps.

Exercise 3 - Part 2

Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind is a story of rags to riches, as one Shawn Carter's (Jay-Z) departure from Brooklyn opens the doors to the "concrete jungle where dreams are made of." The first verse alone, "yeah i'm out that Brooklyn, now i'm down in Tribeca, right next to DeNiro, but i'll be hood forever" reinforces Whitehead's notion that New York is not a city but a realm exclusive to the perceiver. No matter where Jay-Z will go, he says that his heart will always be in Brooklyn, as he is sticking to his roots. Similarly, my childhood belongs to winters in Central Park (among other things) which dictates my perception of city life. Jay-Z's interpretation sculpts an image that Brooklyn is a hood and Manhattan is a place where dreams become reality, however I see New York as the latter plus a chunk of nature smack-dab in the center. This further establishes Whitehead's theory as two residents don't share a unified interpretation of their own home.

Exercise 3 - part 1

Colston Whitehead's The colossus of New York details many aspects of New York City life from a wide range of perspectives. In it, he highlights moods, conflicts, relationships and more of everything between the way it rains to the Brooklyn Bridge and beyond. Incidentally, he begins his novel by noting the concept that my city is different than your city which is different than the next guy over's city in that our view -- our mere understanding of the city -- is limited to our experiences of what it was like in the past. In other words, a corner on any given block may be a child's go-to pizzeria after school, but to someone older it may signify the death of their wife's favorite nail salon. On a macrocosmic scale, this means that our New York's are molded by different understandings and perspectives, and as such are separate entities in and of themselves. This idea inspired my in-class short, titled Winter in Central Park, which revisits my childhood as an upper east sider. In it I state that to some, Central Park is a place for exercise at best, or even a place to relax and sit in the great lawn. Perhaps the less appreciating view it as a crossroad which splits upper Manhattan in two. My Central Park however consists of building igloos, snowball fights, sledding, ice-skating, drinking hot chocolate and daring to touch the tundra that is the Alice in Wonderland statue during the winter. Moreover, my Central Park shifts meanings with the passing of seasons. In that sense, not only is my working definition different than yours, it is different from itself as it is inconsistent altogether.

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?