New York City is just a village, too

Cosmopolitan New York – no way. Anyone who moves out of the neighborhood quickly becomes a “traitor”, and farmers’ markets shape the mood in the city on weekends.

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Empire State and Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park and Brooklyn Bridge – if you think New York City is only made up of tourist attractions, urban canyons, glamor, show and big business, you are missing out on real, everyday life. And that feels almost provincial, even in a cosmopolitan city. For example, there’s this elderly lady in the Upper West Side. She was born and raised there, and has always lived there. The lady cannot understand at all how one could settle and live in any other quarter of the metropolis. In her view of the world, which is shaped by local patriotism, the “original New Yorker” even goes so far as to describe anyone in her circle of acquaintances as a “traitor” who has moved just two blocks downtown. So sometimes the world can be so small – even if only in the head.

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