There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable.
Going to the Big Apple for only my third time ever, I was prepared for the sound and the fury but still underestimated its power. The loud and dirty streets with the sound of car horns and sirens bouncing between glassy skyscrapers and old tenement housing. Squinting at the blinding sunshine after ascending to street level, surrounded by the Friday throngs and awake since two a.m., the thought that dominated my mind was “I wouldn’t want to live here.” Trekking first down to Midtown and then up to 183rd Street and honestly hating every step of it.
Clattering down the narrow stone stairs from the fifth floor, already missing the toasty little radiators and eclectic decor of my friend’s flat…only to freeze my legs solid waiting for the delayed bus to finally take me to the Met Cloisters. After realising it’s called the Cloisters because they pillaged cloister pieces, having my eyes do that swirly cartoon thing after staring at the unicorn tapestries for too long, and buying discount Christmas cards in the museum shop, I trudged back to the flat sans bus. This New York is cold and tiring and lonely.
Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night.
After eating Thai Red Curry at a cozy little local restaurant with my friend, we stopped by the local off-licence shop. I grabbed some random cans and bottles and, when asked if I needed a bag, demonstrated to the shopkeeper that I could simply slot two full-sized wine bottles into the two outer pockets of my oversized winter parka. The old woman seemed quite taken with my ingenious solution, and my friend told me they’d never seen her so happy. We sat and sipped and rambled on into the night, learning about the Jersey Devil and Snallygaster and making plans for Saturday.
In the morning, we took the A train to midtown for the MoMA. I’d never actually been before and was unsure of what to expect, given my less-than-good track record of modern art museum experiences (looking at you, Stedelijk). There was definitely a lot of weird stuff, but some really beautiful things as well. We broke up our time at the museum with lunch at Ichiran—a delightful place I’m determined to return to—before briefly entering East-Asian-Gen-Z-in-NYC mode (AKA, bubble tea and skincare shopping). This New York is metropolitan and filled with endless possibilities.
Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. — E.B. White, Here Is New York
Quietly suffering from too-spicy shrimp laksa, we arrived at Kate and Zoe’s on 150-something Street. I found myself surrounded by a dozen twenty-somethings, all of whom more-or-less worked in the same business as my friend. Those hours of listening to people chat about drapers, sewing machines, bad nepo baby productions, and the interpersonal conflicts of different shop owners were a lovely, sultry haze in the bitterly frozen landscape of The City That Never Sleeps. Examples of the fourth wall being interrupted include when my friend and I secretly rolled our eyes at each other as someone exclaimed how “Asheville is the new Austin… and I’m from Austin!” Observing with wonder how a scraggly bunch of young people had carved out a space to “make it in the big city.” Pleasantly inebriated, we snacked on popcorn and bagels fresh from Jersey (a delicacy associated with the state that I was unaware of).
Another cold, bright, clear morning with a wind that continues to make me squint. I’m a look-up-and-study-the-menu-beforehand kind of person, but I order willy-nilly at the Colombian cafe because I don’t know what anything is and I say a prayer that I don’t accidentally order anything with cilantro in it. We say our goodbyes and I begin the multi-transit journey back to Laguardia. Thinking about what, if anything, I’d tell my therapist about this trip and what it meant to me. This New York is another precious diamond chip on Julia’s ring.
