Why They Come
Sometimes…
Scratch that.
Most of the time I forget how awe-inspiring New York City can be. I don’t mean culturally or intellectually or artistically or anything like that. I mean physically. From certain perspectives the sheer mass of the place reveals itself to you in a way that literally sucks the air from your lungs.
Last night I was sitting at the back of the third deck of the ferry in a corner seat. The corner seat is a particularly good vantage point because the windows wrap around from the side to the back of that deck and offer a 270 degree perspective of the harbor. The night outside was cold and sharp and incredibly clear. It had the kind of clarity and visual focus that you only get on a cloudless winter night that makes everything look hyper-real with precisely defined borders, clear angles and perfect definition. I looked at a view that I have seen hundreds of times from ballpark in St. George that faces the city but the view was different somehow. I’m only at the ballpark in the summer and on clear summer days the view has an almost unreal feeling. The city looks like a back lot set at some movie studio somewhere. This is not the case on a clear winter night.
The ferry pulled out of the Whitehall terminal slip and turned west to avoid the path of another incoming boat as well as one of the small fast ferries that skitter around the harbor. I was then facing directly uptown looking through the spaces between the buildings of Battery Park City. Each space held a glimpse of the ghostly white construction cranes that loom where the World Trade Center used to be. The cranes were the only things out of focus; their soft white arms still in the winter wind and glowing softly in light shining from the ground.
After a minute or two of westward progress the ferry rotated on an invisible axis and began its southbound journey towards the St. George terminal. The rotation provided a tourist's dream perspective, a panorama ranging from the West side of the Manhattan Island across the George Washington Bridge visible miles up the Hudson and sweeping down northern New Jersey, the Jersey City skyline looking like a newly-grown extension to the iconic Manhattan silhouette.
As the journey progressed and the city receded into the distance with Brooklyn and its legendary lower-East River tethers to Manhattan Island joining the view I began to realize one of the reasons Manhattan is such a magnet to people from other parts of the country. Forget about the tangible things like culture or restaurants or job opportunities. The very look of the place is inspiring. What it inspires, exactly, depends on the viewer but it is inspiring nonetheless. People come here from some generic strip-malled suburban pit and they feel like they’ve somehow achieved something merely by becoming part of the landscape. And I may be accused of being provincial for saying this, but it’s not just an urban vs. “the boonies” effect. I think there are only a few cities that can have the, pardon the appropriation of the phrase, “shock and awe” effect on someone that New York has. I haven’t been there, but Paris is probably one. Maybe Rome due to its sheer age. Tokyo probably, but again I haven’t been. In fact other than London I can’t think of anyplace I’ve ever been that makes the same kind of impression. I have certainly seen more beautiful cities (Vancouver, Prague, Stockholm, Helsinki, San Francisco, even New Orleans in all its faded glory) but only New York and London have ever induced a sensation that feels almost like physical intimidation.
To be sure, there are plenty of places that think they can pull it off, but ultimately they don’t. Los Angeles? Sorry, no. Yeah, they have Hollywood but that’s a place made by the people who live and lived there. It’s not impressive on its own. In fact, the first time I went there the cabbie had to tell me “This is Hollywood” to which I offered the witty reply of “Huh, really?” Toronto desperately wants to be New York. Sorry guys, but you do a passable imitation in the movies and on TV. In real life? Not so much.
As increasing distance reduced the city to snow globe proportions I tried to imagine what the tourists around me were thinking. I became vaguely jealous because I thought they were experiencing something I never could: seeing this sight that lay before us for the first time. Then again, after writing all this, maybe I did experience it.
Scratch that.
Most of the time I forget how awe-inspiring New York City can be. I don’t mean culturally or intellectually or artistically or anything like that. I mean physically. From certain perspectives the sheer mass of the place reveals itself to you in a way that literally sucks the air from your lungs.
Last night I was sitting at the back of the third deck of the ferry in a corner seat. The corner seat is a particularly good vantage point because the windows wrap around from the side to the back of that deck and offer a 270 degree perspective of the harbor. The night outside was cold and sharp and incredibly clear. It had the kind of clarity and visual focus that you only get on a cloudless winter night that makes everything look hyper-real with precisely defined borders, clear angles and perfect definition. I looked at a view that I have seen hundreds of times from ballpark in St. George that faces the city but the view was different somehow. I’m only at the ballpark in the summer and on clear summer days the view has an almost unreal feeling. The city looks like a back lot set at some movie studio somewhere. This is not the case on a clear winter night.
The ferry pulled out of the Whitehall terminal slip and turned west to avoid the path of another incoming boat as well as one of the small fast ferries that skitter around the harbor. I was then facing directly uptown looking through the spaces between the buildings of Battery Park City. Each space held a glimpse of the ghostly white construction cranes that loom where the World Trade Center used to be. The cranes were the only things out of focus; their soft white arms still in the winter wind and glowing softly in light shining from the ground.
After a minute or two of westward progress the ferry rotated on an invisible axis and began its southbound journey towards the St. George terminal. The rotation provided a tourist's dream perspective, a panorama ranging from the West side of the Manhattan Island across the George Washington Bridge visible miles up the Hudson and sweeping down northern New Jersey, the Jersey City skyline looking like a newly-grown extension to the iconic Manhattan silhouette.
As the journey progressed and the city receded into the distance with Brooklyn and its legendary lower-East River tethers to Manhattan Island joining the view I began to realize one of the reasons Manhattan is such a magnet to people from other parts of the country. Forget about the tangible things like culture or restaurants or job opportunities. The very look of the place is inspiring. What it inspires, exactly, depends on the viewer but it is inspiring nonetheless. People come here from some generic strip-malled suburban pit and they feel like they’ve somehow achieved something merely by becoming part of the landscape. And I may be accused of being provincial for saying this, but it’s not just an urban vs. “the boonies” effect. I think there are only a few cities that can have the, pardon the appropriation of the phrase, “shock and awe” effect on someone that New York has. I haven’t been there, but Paris is probably one. Maybe Rome due to its sheer age. Tokyo probably, but again I haven’t been. In fact other than London I can’t think of anyplace I’ve ever been that makes the same kind of impression. I have certainly seen more beautiful cities (Vancouver, Prague, Stockholm, Helsinki, San Francisco, even New Orleans in all its faded glory) but only New York and London have ever induced a sensation that feels almost like physical intimidation.
To be sure, there are plenty of places that think they can pull it off, but ultimately they don’t. Los Angeles? Sorry, no. Yeah, they have Hollywood but that’s a place made by the people who live and lived there. It’s not impressive on its own. In fact, the first time I went there the cabbie had to tell me “This is Hollywood” to which I offered the witty reply of “Huh, really?” Toronto desperately wants to be New York. Sorry guys, but you do a passable imitation in the movies and on TV. In real life? Not so much.
As increasing distance reduced the city to snow globe proportions I tried to imagine what the tourists around me were thinking. I became vaguely jealous because I thought they were experiencing something I never could: seeing this sight that lay before us for the first time. Then again, after writing all this, maybe I did experience it.
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