Everyone loves New York, or at least that’s what all the t-shirts proclaim. I hadn’t spent time there since the 1963 World’s Fair when my grandmother took my sister and me. I was six. On that visit we wandered around Fifth Avenue window shopping the luxurious diamonds and furs when not at the actual fair.
While the city is larger than life full of shiny perfect skyscrapers I am aware of the undercurrent of the dark side when I walk the streets this time around. I see the dual worlds living side by side: the affluent and the poor. That both sides co-exist in relative day by day peace is a miracle really. The glamour and the despair are odd bedfellows to behold. How can the haves be so content with their city when the evidence of the different reality of the have-nots is in their face at every turn? I wasn’t even in any of the “bad neighborhoods” but the inequity permeates all areas. The distress of our society is all around, a microcosm representing the whole of our country, if not the world. Witness New Orleans, the civil war in Iraq, and countless other examples.
The racial tension and economic barriers reveal the private little spheres each person holds around them like a protective coating but you know the coating is only an illusion, like a bubble on the verge of bursting at any moment. So living in your own made up reality while bumping up against the bubbles of the other individuals swarming all around you is perhaps the excitement and danger that draws people to New York, the ones who go there by choice that is.
The richer, more affluent don’t just surround themselves with their personal imaginary bubbles, they arm themselves in shiny ridiculously long stretch limos as they glide through the city streets. The better off you are, the thicker the wall of insulation needs to be to shut out those other realities. To reach your arm through the bubble and engage in the other realities crowding your bubble would be to wake from a dream of your own making. The stark realism would be shocking yet each individual houses an unconscious awareness already. A “we all know what’s going on here” kind of thing. To function each day and go forward with our lives we put on the blinders of tunnel vision and try not to turn our heads too often.
The shiny beautiful skyscrapers look awesome when you look up, but the accompanying stench of huge piles of bags of garbage sprawled around their bases like the exposed roots of an ancient oak tree show a truer complete picture. And the views, like the one from the 65th floor of the NBC Rainbow Room is spectacular. But a $20 martini is absurd no matter how wonderful the view.
So while Donald Trump’s New York looks fabulous and magical as portrayed on TV, it’s his own personal fantasy, a very darkly tinted pair of rose colored glasses indeed. I don’t hear of him visiting the aids clinics of his own neighborhoods, never mind South Africa, or donating half of his billions to aid humanity and bring the truly destitute up a notch. His bubble is not just limos and helicopters but the metallic looking towers he endeavors to build. I guess his chore of shutting out reality is a bit more strenuous than the rest of us.
Side Notes:
Young boy: “Mommy why can’t we ride in that spaceship?”
Mother: “It’s not a spaceship honey, it’s an airplane.”
Delta Gates, La Guardia Airport
While it is customary to stand at the curb with an arm raised to hail a cab, of the many people I saw doing this, I saw no cabs actually stop for any of them.
Rockefeller Center skating rink with the lights, flags and funny statue is magical late at night.
Up close, Times Square is pretty trashy.
If you have to have your period all over a public place, a noisy Turkish restaurant with bright red walls and seat coverings is the perfect place. Noisy because when you tell the waitress of your little accident, no one else hears, and red seats, well, for obvious reasons.
