The Other Place
On a movie I watched as a kid, a rocket ship flew through the Lincoln Tunnel. Since the tunnel was mentioned several times and everyone seemed to know what it was, I thought I should too. Asking my parents, they replied with New York City.
Even though I didn't know where it was, you couldn't help but be aware of the place. People always talked about it, showed it in movies and television shows, even King Kong went there.
It was the place where people lived in tall buildings, kids played in parks instead of backyards, and schools and baseball teams were named after streets. Very alien to someone who grew up in the southwest of the United States.
I was always being told how lucky I was to grow up where I did, because New York was made out of concrete and the kids there never got to see trees. After joining the Navy and meeting people from NYC, I learned that was never true. Central Park is full of trees, and Upstate New York has even more.
During 1982, it was hard to believe writers and comedians on Late Night with David Letterman talk about being able to get any kind of food 24 hours a day in New York, while everything closed at 9 pm where I lived. They would even take the camera around the city, pointing out that no matter what you wanted, you could find it in NYC.
Hearing these things all your life still doesn't prepare you from being staggered when you actually see it. Massive, towering buildings that cover Manhattan Island, and an impressive subway system that catacombs underneath it that takes you anywhere you want to go. So many people and so much stuff crammed into one place. When it gets to be too much, you can go into Central Park and get away from it all. Really amazing place.
Even though I was led to believe that New Yorkers were rude and overbearing, I found them to be pretty nice and extremely tolerant. Having a sea of people moving around with little space to maneuver, seems to make them the most compliant people I've ever seen.
One thing I can't get past, is that no matter how many times you hear how much there is to do there, it will always be an understatement. The museums alone are incredible. We got to see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the American Museum of Natural History. When we had to leave the last one, my daughter said "why does this place have to be so awesome? You can spend forever in here." To me, that applied to every one of them. The people there are so lucky to have access to places like that.
But I can't help wondering that if I lived there, would I actually take advantage of what the place has to offer, or just get into a routine of getting off work, going home and watching TV.
It didn't matter where I was living at the time, New York City has always been the other place.