I heard that New Yorkers are very individualistic. I remember I had a boss at the Arizona paper who didn’t say hello, even if you said good morning, they didn’t respond. He had a sign taped to his office door that read, “I’m from New York.” As if that legend justified his lack of kindness.
I imagined that they actually lived in some kind of bubble like in the movies, walking fast, not looking to the sides and engrossed in their phones. But my experience was very different, coming from a conservative state where speaking Spanish in public places is a cause for intimidating stares and back judgements, hearing so many languages and seeing different faces in the Big Apple is a real treat.
The city vibrates gloriously, you walk beside the construction worker and glamorous model. You can step out looking like a queen or in your pajamas with a teddy coat. In that city the skyscrapers shine with their own light, there are all tastes and colors, with modernist lines or rosettes carved in stone. Melancholic balconies that draw the curtains leaving room for the eyes of the curious into other worlds.
Steam gushes from the sewers as if you are walking on clouds, while the smells of Chinese, Arabic, Mexican food, even traditional hot dogs fantasize with your nose. I went to buy some sweet bread from Levain Bakery, and on my way to the bakery I passed the Dakota building, on the sidewalk where John Lennon was murdered.
Art is as accessible as pretzels, from small galleries, where you can see Boteros for sale, to large museums that house the work of the greatest artists of all time. It was there that I discovered that Salvador Dalí’s painting, “The Persistence of Memory”, is so small that it barely exceeds 30 centimeters. It is in the MoMa Museum of Modern Art itself that I was engrossed in the brochures of Diego Rivera in his creative process of the Industrial Revolution mural, which is displayed at the main entrance for the pleasure of visitors.
What can I say about the food! With so many options in NYC, restaurants are bound to excel, and while it’s not cheap, the quality is always worth paying for.
The stars are at my fingertips, not even in my wildest dreams would I have thought I’d meet Hugh Jackman in person, and when he stood meters away from me thanking us for the applause for his stage play, I was like ‘This is New York “.
It’s New York, cold and gray and bright. Amalgam of cultures. A metropolis founded by migrants, where cultural diversity works its magic.
Where you walk fast and your heart beats fast.
*- The author is an independent journalist for international media
