The thing most wonderful about New York City is that most people know they will fall in love with it even before stepping into it. Yet, when they eventually do, it’s for reasons often unique to themselves.
For me, the last two years of living in New York have been filled with innumerable firsts – commuting in a subway system that runs 24 x 7, living through a real sub-zero winter, tobogganing in three feet deep snow, watching a baseball game, watching world’s best musicals and classical concerts, eating pani poori and kati rolls at roadside joints at three in the morning, hating and then falling in love with bagels, among many others.
But the two things about New York that have struck a special cord with me are its rich and fascinating history, and the way the city has re-imagined the concept of public space.
Thinking about it, perhaps the surest way to fall in love with a city is to fall in love with its history. I stumbled into New York’s history by accident – while waiting for my US visa interview at the American Embassy Library in Chennai. In search of an interesting way to kill a few hours, I decided to watch Ric Burns’ extraordinary eight part documentary series on the history of New York.
It’s a tragedy that cities with a history spread over centuries – like many in India – have very little written about them, while others enjoy the uninterrupted focus and dedication of historians in every generation. New York certainly belongs to the latter group. But then, for a 400 year old city, it has perhaps the most interesting histories of them all.
Ever since the Dutch occupied the city in the early 17th century, the city has been the epicentre of action on the American continent. Conquest by the British, and the war of the American independence in late 17th century; growth as a thriving economic centre and a regional transport hub in the 18th century; receiving massive waves of European immigrants, Tammany Hall politics, construction of iconic infrastructure such as Manhattan’s grid, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, and the world’s first electric distribution system in the 19th century; emergence as the cultural and financial capital of the world, witnessing an unprecedented skyscraper boom, economic fall and resurgence of the city in the 20th century; and finally, the tragic 9/11 disaster that marked the arrival of 21st century and the spirited response of the city – New York has seen it all.
It is almost impossible to live in the city and not marvel at the spirit, resilience, and imagination of the generations of people who have called New York their home. It’s for that reason that my favorite museum in the city, practically unknown to the tourists, is a museum dedicated to the past and the present of the city, Museum of the City of New York.
Yet another incredible aspect of this city is the way it treats its public spaces.
Most people would dismiss the idea of a big, dense, thriving metropolis with skyrocketing property rates as being capable of creating an ever expanding public space for its residents. Fortunately, New York was blessed with public leaders and visionaries who thought otherwise. For me, and presumably for most New Yorkers, the joy of living in New York does not come from being able to go to expensive concerts and restaurants, but from being able to visit and enjoy the vast number of its public spaces – small and large parks, playgrounds, waterfronts – for free.
The place that easily tops this list is the Central Park, deservingly called as “lungs of the city.” My fondest memories of the park are when I put its six mile outer loop to good use for my numerous training runs for the New York City Marathon 2010. But the park is so much more than a runner’s paradise. Walk into the Central Park on a summer weekend and you will be spoilt for choices: watching a free concert or a Shakespeare play; taking a boat ride; listening to one of the several solo musicians spread all over the park; sitting by the magnificent Bethesda fountain; joining a street dance party; or just relaxing on it lawns and reading a book – all of which I have done at some point. That a park designed in 1857 is still the most popular spot for its residents, and is visited by 35 million people annually, is the greatest testimony to the vision of its architects – Olmsted and Vaux.
But not all New Yorkers live close to Central Park or any of its other big parks. Enter Mayor Bloomberg with his ambitious PlaNYC 2030, which is working towards a vision where every New Yorker lives within ten-minute walk of a park. What’s remarkable is that, over the last few years, New York has made rapid progress towards realizing PlaNYC’s vision through supporting the creation of innovative urban parks like The High Line, and now, the LowLine.
But New York City isn’t just innovating how it creates new public space, it is also constantly innovating in the way it uses them. On a Saturday morning last August, I hired free roller blades to skate down Park Avenue – one of the busiest streets in New York. The street was shut for half a day under the “Summer Streets” program of the city government, so that residents could use this extra public space to run, bike, rock climb, and fly through the air on a zip line.
That summer, the city government partnered with Sing For Hope, a nonprofit, under the “Pop-Up Pianos” program to install 80 street pianos at locations across the city and to let anybody play them. Several of my lunch breaks when interning for the Mayor’s office last summer, were spent at a cozy spot in the City Hall Park, right next to a Pop-Up piano under use. It was at moments like these when, with little loving embraces, the city endeared itself to me.
A couple of months ago, I moved out of New York after completing my Masters at Columbia. In the few months that led up to it, I made frequent day trips to Washington, DC, most of which ended with a bus ride back into New York around midnight. Every time the bus approached Manhattan from New Jersey, I would sit still with my nose pressed up against the window, eyes staring far into the dark night, taking in as much of the glimmering Manhattan skyline as they could.
It was during one such moment that I realized this. For only the second time in my life, after a quiet little town in western India where I spent fourteen years of my childhood, I had found a place that I could call home. So what if it is as far away from my childhood town in distance, as it is in its character. It is, ultimately, a place that I can never get tired of, and a place I will always look for an excuse to visit: a home away from home.
For me, the last two years of living in New York have been filled with innumerable firsts – commuting in a subway system that runs 24 x 7, living through a real sub-zero winter, tobogganing in three feet deep snow, watching a baseball game, watching world’s best musicals and classical concerts, eating pani poori and kati rolls at roadside joints at three in the morning, hating and then falling in love with bagels, among many others.
Thinking about it, perhaps the surest way to fall in love with a city is to fall in love with its history. I stumbled into New York’s history by accident – while waiting for my US visa interview at the American Embassy Library in Chennai. In search of an interesting way to kill a few hours, I decided to watch Ric Burns’ extraordinary eight part documentary series on the history of New York.
It’s a tragedy that cities with a history spread over centuries – like many in India – have very little written about them, while others enjoy the uninterrupted focus and dedication of historians in every generation. New York certainly belongs to the latter group. But then, for a 400 year old city, it has perhaps the most interesting histories of them all.
Ever since the Dutch occupied the city in the early 17th century, the city has been the epicentre of action on the American continent. Conquest by the British, and the war of the American independence in late 17th century; growth as a thriving economic centre and a regional transport hub in the 18th century; receiving massive waves of European immigrants, Tammany Hall politics, construction of iconic infrastructure such as Manhattan’s grid, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, and the world’s first electric distribution system in the 19th century; emergence as the cultural and financial capital of the world, witnessing an unprecedented skyscraper boom, economic fall and resurgence of the city in the 20th century; and finally, the tragic 9/11 disaster that marked the arrival of 21st century and the spirited response of the city – New York has seen it all.
It is almost impossible to live in the city and not marvel at the spirit, resilience, and imagination of the generations of people who have called New York their home. It’s for that reason that my favorite museum in the city, practically unknown to the tourists, is a museum dedicated to the past and the present of the city, Museum of the City of New York.
Yet another incredible aspect of this city is the way it treats its public spaces.
Most people would dismiss the idea of a big, dense, thriving metropolis with skyrocketing property rates as being capable of creating an ever expanding public space for its residents. Fortunately, New York was blessed with public leaders and visionaries who thought otherwise. For me, and presumably for most New Yorkers, the joy of living in New York does not come from being able to go to expensive concerts and restaurants, but from being able to visit and enjoy the vast number of its public spaces – small and large parks, playgrounds, waterfronts – for free.
The place that easily tops this list is the Central Park, deservingly called as “lungs of the city.” My fondest memories of the park are when I put its six mile outer loop to good use for my numerous training runs for the New York City Marathon 2010. But the park is so much more than a runner’s paradise. Walk into the Central Park on a summer weekend and you will be spoilt for choices: watching a free concert or a Shakespeare play; taking a boat ride; listening to one of the several solo musicians spread all over the park; sitting by the magnificent Bethesda fountain; joining a street dance party; or just relaxing on it lawns and reading a book – all of which I have done at some point. That a park designed in 1857 is still the most popular spot for its residents, and is visited by 35 million people annually, is the greatest testimony to the vision of its architects – Olmsted and Vaux.
But not all New Yorkers live close to Central Park or any of its other big parks. Enter Mayor Bloomberg with his ambitious PlaNYC 2030, which is working towards a vision where every New Yorker lives within ten-minute walk of a park. What’s remarkable is that, over the last few years, New York has made rapid progress towards realizing PlaNYC’s vision through supporting the creation of innovative urban parks like The High Line, and now, the LowLine.
But New York City isn’t just innovating how it creates new public space, it is also constantly innovating in the way it uses them. On a Saturday morning last August, I hired free roller blades to skate down Park Avenue – one of the busiest streets in New York. The street was shut for half a day under the “Summer Streets” program of the city government, so that residents could use this extra public space to run, bike, rock climb, and fly through the air on a zip line.
That summer, the city government partnered with Sing For Hope, a nonprofit, under the “Pop-Up Pianos” program to install 80 street pianos at locations across the city and to let anybody play them. Several of my lunch breaks when interning for the Mayor’s office last summer, were spent at a cozy spot in the City Hall Park, right next to a Pop-Up piano under use. It was at moments like these when, with little loving embraces, the city endeared itself to me.
It was during one such moment that I realized this. For only the second time in my life, after a quiet little town in western India where I spent fourteen years of my childhood, I had found a place that I could call home. So what if it is as far away from my childhood town in distance, as it is in its character. It is, ultimately, a place that I can never get tired of, and a place I will always look for an excuse to visit: a home away from home.
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