Worth the Sum of Its Parts:
An Analysis of the Coexisting Divides of New York City
Crude, angry, demanding, determined, obnoxious, abrupt, rude. These are all stereotypical words to describe the “typical” New Yorker.
As of July 2015, New York City had a population of 8,550,405 people (“Current and Projected Populations”). These 8,550,405 inhabitants are not just Americans. Or New Yorkers. They have backgrounds, ethnicities, jobs, careers, families, and friends. Some are not even New Yorkers, just mere visitors. Some are not even American, but by the overwhelming welcome for those who have been accepted through, as for many, Ellis Island, New York is their adopted home; Every one of those 8,550,405 people offers a little, but important contribution to New York City.
A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I watched a mainstream teenage movie set in the fifties. The elemental theme, for lack of a better word, was the question, “Is something worth more or less than the sum of its parts?” This philosophical question begs an understanding of reality and perspective. Is something worth more, or less, than what every single part is worth, added up? New York City is a city of parts and aspects. With those parts and aspects comes the inevitable division -- the divides that separate something from another. New York City is no stranger to segregation, or boundaries. As a New Yorker by birth, I see how the stereotypes of New York City -- being constantly divided and challenging to live in -- present curious questions needed to further understand all aspects of the city, not just the bright and shiny ones the Big Apple is known for. Thus, what exactly are the divides? How do they affect New Yorkers’ everyday lives? And finally, in an ultimate plea to further my quest for urban understanding, do the divides bring the city closer together and culminate in a city better or worse than the existing diversity? These inquiries may seem simple, but to answer them requires insight of New Yorkers’ backgrounds, lifestyles, struggles, and achievements. All of these in the face of both the physical and invisible boundaries New York City presents.
Something physical is something one can visualize and not only exists in the inhabitants’ lives but is a tangible component. Physical divides can be demeaning or advantageous, depending on which side of the border one is on. One example of a physical divide in New York City is the famous five boroughs: Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens. One can think of Manhattan as the leader -- where the “big bucks” are made and the stars are produced. Home of Broadway, Wall Street and the famous 5th Avenue, Manhattan is the epicenter for New York City culture. Manhattan stems from a history of immigration, great success, and great failure, industrialization and modernism, resulting in a forum for new ideas, cultivated traditions, and everything in between. Then there’s the Bronx. Imagine the “isle of joy” as pictured in Frank Sinatra’s “Manhattan,” and transform your idealistic view into the exact opposite. Known for the highest crime rate of all the boroughs, the Bronx has been painted with words of despair, within not only the graffiti, but also the conscious reality of the community. Almost 30 percent of the Bronx’s 1.4 million residents live at or below the poverty line (Krause-Jackson). This statistic demonstrates how desperate the Bronx is; but, for an odd reason, the government's response to its needs is housing: The Projects. Disliked and despised by the majority, 100 housing projects rest in the Bronx, culminating in 44,500 apartments (“New York City Housing Authority”). As a general opinion, housing projects are considered to be dirty and insecure, in terms of safety and means of long term housing. An example of the state of these projects can be found in the elevators -- a mode of transportation installed for reasons of safety, convenience, and efficiency. But, as Dorian Block comments, “Riding elevators in Bronx public housing is a little like a game of blackjack -- a little strategy and a lot of luck”. Credited by some to the neighborhood “youth vandals,” the state of the elevators is dangerous. In the Castle Hill Houses, 793 outages occurred in the last fiscal year that ended June 30. That results in 27 breakdowns per elevator, or one breakdown every other week (Block). Separated from Manhattan by just the Harlem River, the two boroughs could not represent more different aspects of New York City.
Another very prominent physical divide in New York City is the multitude of races. When walking down Broadway on a typical thursday afternoon, you may pass someone with dark skin, lighter skin, black skin, or completely white skin. These skin tones, although just that, can be significant to others. Skin color can represent one’s financial security, social status, or likeness to be a safety concern to the greater population. These assumptions are called racial profiling, which is a large issue in the city. A primary location where this profiling occurs is about 110th street and up: Harlem. There is an indefinable stereotype that the African American population is more likely to commit a crime than any other race in America. This belief has become an action among some police officers. Because Harlem has the greatest population of African-Americans in New York City, the neighborhood is subject to more racial profiling of African-Americans than any other location in New York City (“New York City”). After slavery was abolished in 1865, many African-Americans came to Harlem to be with others who shared similar past experiences of the horrific, torturous, and awful treatment that slaves endured. Harlem became a sanctuary for African-Americans to express themselves and integrate both the African and the American culture in a part of town they could call theirs. In the 1920’s, Harlem experienced a major transition from a poor ghetto to a city bustling with new music, style, and absolute culture. This period of change is called the Harlem Renaissance. This time of joyousness and freedom ended, however, when the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression began. After that, Harlem was never the same.
As for today, Harlem is stereotyped as a place no white person ever dare enter, for fear of one’s safety being jeopardized. This, of course, is an overstatement – in some eyes. Harlem, as stated with the utmost eloquence by Mr. James Baldwin at the time of the Harlem Renaissance, is a place in which “The people in Harlem know they are living there because white people do not think they are good enough to live anywhere else. No amount of ‘improvement’ can sweeten this fact” (Baldwin 175). Baldwin describes the tangible hostility between the races, all occurring within miles of each other. White people effectively placed black people within the confines of their ‘ghetto’ and disregarded them. Or purposefully avoided it. Here lies the story of the white policeman. “The white policeman standing on a Harlem street corner finds himself at the very center of the revolution now occurring in the world. He is not prepared for it – naturally, nobody is – and, what is possibly much more to the point, he is exposed, as few white people are, to the anguish of the black people around him” (Baldwin 177). The policeman is exposed. He, however, has the luxury of leaving. Of going home to his wife, warm home, and children in the city. The white city. After about ninety years, the people in Harlem have changed. The hostility has lessened. But this image, of the exposed white policeman, will forever be inherited to the children from Harlem.
The racial profiling in New York City starts with skin color, something one notices at a first glance. In 2015, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 22,939 times. 54% of these people were black (“Stop-and-Frisk Data”). Almost all were innocent. Why is it that we have given blacks a reputation that now affects their everyday lives? The most amazing part, however, is that police stop and frisked more people in East Harlem than in any other Manhattan neighborhood in 2011 (“Stop-and-Frisk Here are the Facts”). Just blocks from the Upper East Side, one of the most expensive places to live, occurs the profiling of possible criminals, again 54% of whom are black. This divide of races is extremely important in the general culture of New York City because of its history and key part of the United States’ civil transformation.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. This sentence, as etched into the side of The Statue of Liberty, rests to look down on New York City and the multitudes of people in it. This group of words, when strung together, establishes an almost tangible sense of freedom and diversity that fills the air, along with the smog. People from all over the world enter the ‘golden gates’ of New York City to feel a sense of belonging, in a city completely foreign. These different ethnicities reside together. But, within the gratitude for freedom lies hidden misfortunes that New York City presents. According to a census taken by the US government in 2014, 26.6% of all Non-Hispanic Asian people in New York City were living below the poverty line. Furthermore, 24% of any Hispanic race and 21.5% of the Non-Hispanic Black race also is living in a government defined squalor (“CEO”). This divide between the idealistic dream of New York’s golden opportunities and the reality for people of minorities is astonishing. As stated by John R. Logan, a sociologist at Brown University, “New York’s labor market has been strongly organized by race and ethnicity, and that may have contributed to the boundaries of where people live” (qdt. in Roberts). The careers different ethnic groups are able to achieve are not only segregated, but their housing is directly affected because of it. The jobs different nationalities are offered and how much money they make in turn affects where they live in the City. The more money one makes, the nicer a home one can have. If the job market refuses to hire a certain race, that race is forced into less expensive housing.
Unlike the significance of skin color, or the cost of one’s home, New York City holds divides invisible to the naked eye. One cannot know another’s political opinion, or financial circumstance in just one glance. New York City is one of the most politically divided cities in the country, most likely because of its proximity to Washington D.C. Just in this recent election, New York City hosted regular protests both for and against Donald Trump, the president of the United States. The Women’s Rights March on March 8, 2017, gained 400,000 participants (Bode). It is safe to say that New Yorkers are expressive and willing to demonstrate for causes they believe in. According to PIX11, a Philadelphia man has sued a Manhattan bar for denying him service after seeing a “Make American Great Again” hat on his head. After one round of drinks, the bartender noticed the hat and allegedly “slammed” the next round of drinks on the wooden counter. The man claims the manager later asked him to leave, and stated, “Anyone who supports Trump or believes what you believe is not welcome here” (qdt. in PIX). Before the bartender noticed the hat, the Philadelphian man’s political opinion was meaningless because it was not known. The minute it was announced in a fashion statement, the divide between willing service and banishment was declared.
Furthermore, the wealth gap in New York City, although intangible, is very much present. According to Forbes magazine, New York City is the city with the most billionaires in the US. There are seventy nine billionaires that call New York City home, accumulating in an overall wealth of $364.6 billion (Savchuk). What these wealthy inhabitants do with their money is unknown to most people; however, one can assume it involves penthouses, private jets, and everything in between. On the other hand, New York City is said to be hitting a record high number of homeless living in shelters. According to the Huffington Post, over 60,000 people are living without homes, some with families and even infants to take care of. The cost of New York City’s real estate is increasing faster than the residents’ incomes, and one third of their income is being spent on rent. Because of this gentrification, the homeless are being forced to move away from their previous lives to “access shelters” (Goldberg). This does not fix the problem. In fact, it makes it worse. The mass movement of people creates uncomfortable, if not unsafe, circumstances for both the homeless and the general population. As one strolls down the sidewalks of Manhattan, one passes those in $800 suits from Ralph Lauren and someone sitting on a ripped quilted blanket with an old Dixie cup full of $2.50 in change. Sometimes the businessman will reach down and give a little of his wealth to the desperate gentleman on the ground below him. The juxtaposition of the diametrically opposed financial conditions is sufficient enough for the whole world to be aware. However, what they don’t know is how New York allows these opposites to coexist, even with the hostility that accompanies it.
Instead of focusing on the negatives and sole existence of all the above divides, one can experience New York City with a completely different attitude -- an attitude that understands how unique it is that all the divides not only exist, but find a way to compliment each other and make the city better. The juxtaposed socioeconomic divide, although very large, is a part of what makes the City so interesting. A documentary named “Class Divide” analyzes the complicated relationship of a one block separation between a $50,000 per year school and a low income housing building. Avenues: The World School’s mission statement, in part, is to graduate “great leaders when they can be, good followers when they should be; on their way to well-chosen higher education; and, most importantly, architects of lives that transcend the ordinary” (“Mission”). The students who graduate from this institution grow to be “world citizens,” becoming CEOs, entrepreneurs, humanitarians, and a benefit for the human race. On one morning, you would see cars of the Mercedes, Bentley, Ferrari, and BMW companies pull up to the glass door entrance, the parents walk their children to the door, wish them a nice day, and kiss them goodbye. Watching them from just across the street, stand children who may wish to access this kind of wealth -- the wealth to have an education that allows children to excel and already be in an advantaged position after graduation. The Elliott Chelsea Housing Project, just 115 steps from Avenues, is home to over 4,500 residents. As described by Juwan, a teenage resident, “You don’t know what goes on when I close my door and lock my door at night. It could be no hot water. It could be no cold water. It could be no food” (“Class Divide”). The difference between the resources the children have access to is outstanding. Kindergarteners at Avenues get Ipads on the first day. Residents of the Projects get erratic water temperatures and the uncertainty of a good meal. How these two concepts exist just 115 steps from one another is astonishing to me and, in my opinion, is one of the most fascinating aspects of New York City.
Whether one is black, white, Hispanic, or Asian, anyone can find a place or neighborhood in which they feel most at home. Great examples of this are the tiny towns that represent a part of the world. Resting in lower Manhattan, Little Italy thrives from the ancestors of Italians. One can find an abundance of authentic and understandably tasty Italian food. One can imagine that when greeted with the shining, ‘Little Italy’ sign, an Italian immigrant in the early 1900s would have felt right at home, as with many Ellis Island immigrants. One of the best parts about Little Italy, however, is that Chinatown is just around the corner. Chinatown, as stated by a reviewer on Yelp in 2016, is “as authentic as it ever was -- maybe even more so because more Chinese regions are now represented here. You can taste, smell and touch the cultural nuances walking the streets all hours of the day and night, and the sensory inputs tingle long after you leave” (Y. Yuri) Chinatown, as with other little cultural versions of larger countries, demonstrate exactly how the juxtaposition in New York City is cherished. One can have an Italian pastry for lunch, walk two city blocks, and have a bowl of authentic ramen noodles for dinner. In no other city is this amount of cultural change in such close proximity.
New York City is the capital of the world. Representing almost every nationality one could imagine, the sprawling metropolis is home to every size, race, or gender there is. But, the City so many have grown to love is no stranger to the evil. Destruction, pain, misery, and extreme emergency have been encountered within the 304.6 sq. miles of sky high buildings and sidewalks. The Stock Market crash on September 29, 2008, is said to have unemployed 240,000 people within one month (Amadeo). Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012; the storm damaged all of Manhattan’s subway systems, fires destroyed over 100 homes in Queens, and overall fifty-three were killed because of the tempest. On September 11th, 2001, two planes flew directly into the World Trade Centers, killing two thousand and changing the city forever. These tragic events helped, in large part, to shape the city it is today. The most important impression to take away from these crises is not the collective death toll or unemployment rate. The impact one should realize is how New York as a whole responded to these tragedies. Despite the differences, despite the divides, despite the boundaries both physical and invisible, New Yorkers united to reestablish their city. Shared tragic experiences and grief bound the residents. What New Yorkers thought divided them was overshadowed for the greater purpose of rebuilding and staying in their beloved city.
On any given day, you can pass those with different races, backgrounds, lifestyles, struggles, and achievements than you. In any other place, you could be miles from that person. But in New York, you share the sidewalk regardless of the things that divide you. In fact, you share the sidewalk because of your differences. New York wouldn’t be the same without the people and backgrounds that founded it. The City wouldn’t have the same attraction it has today without the hundreds of protests, shiny lights, angry taxi drivers, wealth, and poverty that defines it. The divides make New York City what it is.
With that being said, is New York City greater, or less, than the sum of its parts? The Big Apple is full of extraordinary attractions that brings tourists across the bridges. But once you cross the bridges, you notice a sense of collective pride and coherence that fills the pungent air. This community is founded on resilience and division. The division, however, does not (generally) result in violence. The physical and invisible divides unite the city in a way only New Yorkers can understand. Because of this, New York City is worth more than the sum of its parts.
A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I watched a mainstream teenage movie set in the fifties. The elemental theme, for lack of a better word, was the question, “Is something worth more or less than the sum of its parts?” This philosophical question begs an understanding of reality and perspective. Is something worth more, or less, than what every single part is worth, added up? New York City is a city of parts and aspects. With those parts and aspects comes the inevitable division -- the divides that separate something from another. New York City is no stranger to segregation, or boundaries. As a New Yorker by birth, I see how the stereotypes of New York City -- being constantly divided and challenging to live in -- present curious questions needed to further understand all aspects of the city, not just the bright and shiny ones the Big Apple is known for. Thus, what exactly are the divides? How do they affect New Yorkers’ everyday lives? And finally, in an ultimate plea to further my quest for urban understanding, do the divides bring the city closer together and culminate in a city better or worse than the existing diversity? These inquiries may seem simple, but to answer them requires insight of New Yorkers’ backgrounds, lifestyles, struggles, and achievements. All of these in the face of both the physical and invisible boundaries New York City presents.
Something physical is something one can visualize and not only exists in the inhabitants’ lives but is a tangible component. Physical divides can be demeaning or advantageous, depending on which side of the border one is on. One example of a physical divide in New York City is the famous five boroughs: Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens. One can think of Manhattan as the leader -- where the “big bucks” are made and the stars are produced. Home of Broadway, Wall Street and the famous 5th Avenue, Manhattan is the epicenter for New York City culture. Manhattan stems from a history of immigration, great success, and great failure, industrialization and modernism, resulting in a forum for new ideas, cultivated traditions, and everything in between. Then there’s the Bronx. Imagine the “isle of joy” as pictured in Frank Sinatra’s “Manhattan,” and transform your idealistic view into the exact opposite. Known for the highest crime rate of all the boroughs, the Bronx has been painted with words of despair, within not only the graffiti, but also the conscious reality of the community. Almost 30 percent of the Bronx’s 1.4 million residents live at or below the poverty line (Krause-Jackson). This statistic demonstrates how desperate the Bronx is; but, for an odd reason, the government's response to its needs is housing: The Projects. Disliked and despised by the majority, 100 housing projects rest in the Bronx, culminating in 44,500 apartments (“New York City Housing Authority”). As a general opinion, housing projects are considered to be dirty and insecure, in terms of safety and means of long term housing. An example of the state of these projects can be found in the elevators -- a mode of transportation installed for reasons of safety, convenience, and efficiency. But, as Dorian Block comments, “Riding elevators in Bronx public housing is a little like a game of blackjack -- a little strategy and a lot of luck”. Credited by some to the neighborhood “youth vandals,” the state of the elevators is dangerous. In the Castle Hill Houses, 793 outages occurred in the last fiscal year that ended June 30. That results in 27 breakdowns per elevator, or one breakdown every other week (Block). Separated from Manhattan by just the Harlem River, the two boroughs could not represent more different aspects of New York City.
Another very prominent physical divide in New York City is the multitude of races. When walking down Broadway on a typical thursday afternoon, you may pass someone with dark skin, lighter skin, black skin, or completely white skin. These skin tones, although just that, can be significant to others. Skin color can represent one’s financial security, social status, or likeness to be a safety concern to the greater population. These assumptions are called racial profiling, which is a large issue in the city. A primary location where this profiling occurs is about 110th street and up: Harlem. There is an indefinable stereotype that the African American population is more likely to commit a crime than any other race in America. This belief has become an action among some police officers. Because Harlem has the greatest population of African-Americans in New York City, the neighborhood is subject to more racial profiling of African-Americans than any other location in New York City (“New York City”). After slavery was abolished in 1865, many African-Americans came to Harlem to be with others who shared similar past experiences of the horrific, torturous, and awful treatment that slaves endured. Harlem became a sanctuary for African-Americans to express themselves and integrate both the African and the American culture in a part of town they could call theirs. In the 1920’s, Harlem experienced a major transition from a poor ghetto to a city bustling with new music, style, and absolute culture. This period of change is called the Harlem Renaissance. This time of joyousness and freedom ended, however, when the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Great Depression began. After that, Harlem was never the same.
As for today, Harlem is stereotyped as a place no white person ever dare enter, for fear of one’s safety being jeopardized. This, of course, is an overstatement – in some eyes. Harlem, as stated with the utmost eloquence by Mr. James Baldwin at the time of the Harlem Renaissance, is a place in which “The people in Harlem know they are living there because white people do not think they are good enough to live anywhere else. No amount of ‘improvement’ can sweeten this fact” (Baldwin 175). Baldwin describes the tangible hostility between the races, all occurring within miles of each other. White people effectively placed black people within the confines of their ‘ghetto’ and disregarded them. Or purposefully avoided it. Here lies the story of the white policeman. “The white policeman standing on a Harlem street corner finds himself at the very center of the revolution now occurring in the world. He is not prepared for it – naturally, nobody is – and, what is possibly much more to the point, he is exposed, as few white people are, to the anguish of the black people around him” (Baldwin 177). The policeman is exposed. He, however, has the luxury of leaving. Of going home to his wife, warm home, and children in the city. The white city. After about ninety years, the people in Harlem have changed. The hostility has lessened. But this image, of the exposed white policeman, will forever be inherited to the children from Harlem.
The racial profiling in New York City starts with skin color, something one notices at a first glance. In 2015, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 22,939 times. 54% of these people were black (“Stop-and-Frisk Data”). Almost all were innocent. Why is it that we have given blacks a reputation that now affects their everyday lives? The most amazing part, however, is that police stop and frisked more people in East Harlem than in any other Manhattan neighborhood in 2011 (“Stop-and-Frisk Here are the Facts”). Just blocks from the Upper East Side, one of the most expensive places to live, occurs the profiling of possible criminals, again 54% of whom are black. This divide of races is extremely important in the general culture of New York City because of its history and key part of the United States’ civil transformation.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. This sentence, as etched into the side of The Statue of Liberty, rests to look down on New York City and the multitudes of people in it. This group of words, when strung together, establishes an almost tangible sense of freedom and diversity that fills the air, along with the smog. People from all over the world enter the ‘golden gates’ of New York City to feel a sense of belonging, in a city completely foreign. These different ethnicities reside together. But, within the gratitude for freedom lies hidden misfortunes that New York City presents. According to a census taken by the US government in 2014, 26.6% of all Non-Hispanic Asian people in New York City were living below the poverty line. Furthermore, 24% of any Hispanic race and 21.5% of the Non-Hispanic Black race also is living in a government defined squalor (“CEO”). This divide between the idealistic dream of New York’s golden opportunities and the reality for people of minorities is astonishing. As stated by John R. Logan, a sociologist at Brown University, “New York’s labor market has been strongly organized by race and ethnicity, and that may have contributed to the boundaries of where people live” (qdt. in Roberts). The careers different ethnic groups are able to achieve are not only segregated, but their housing is directly affected because of it. The jobs different nationalities are offered and how much money they make in turn affects where they live in the City. The more money one makes, the nicer a home one can have. If the job market refuses to hire a certain race, that race is forced into less expensive housing.
Unlike the significance of skin color, or the cost of one’s home, New York City holds divides invisible to the naked eye. One cannot know another’s political opinion, or financial circumstance in just one glance. New York City is one of the most politically divided cities in the country, most likely because of its proximity to Washington D.C. Just in this recent election, New York City hosted regular protests both for and against Donald Trump, the president of the United States. The Women’s Rights March on March 8, 2017, gained 400,000 participants (Bode). It is safe to say that New Yorkers are expressive and willing to demonstrate for causes they believe in. According to PIX11, a Philadelphia man has sued a Manhattan bar for denying him service after seeing a “Make American Great Again” hat on his head. After one round of drinks, the bartender noticed the hat and allegedly “slammed” the next round of drinks on the wooden counter. The man claims the manager later asked him to leave, and stated, “Anyone who supports Trump or believes what you believe is not welcome here” (qdt. in PIX). Before the bartender noticed the hat, the Philadelphian man’s political opinion was meaningless because it was not known. The minute it was announced in a fashion statement, the divide between willing service and banishment was declared.
Furthermore, the wealth gap in New York City, although intangible, is very much present. According to Forbes magazine, New York City is the city with the most billionaires in the US. There are seventy nine billionaires that call New York City home, accumulating in an overall wealth of $364.6 billion (Savchuk). What these wealthy inhabitants do with their money is unknown to most people; however, one can assume it involves penthouses, private jets, and everything in between. On the other hand, New York City is said to be hitting a record high number of homeless living in shelters. According to the Huffington Post, over 60,000 people are living without homes, some with families and even infants to take care of. The cost of New York City’s real estate is increasing faster than the residents’ incomes, and one third of their income is being spent on rent. Because of this gentrification, the homeless are being forced to move away from their previous lives to “access shelters” (Goldberg). This does not fix the problem. In fact, it makes it worse. The mass movement of people creates uncomfortable, if not unsafe, circumstances for both the homeless and the general population. As one strolls down the sidewalks of Manhattan, one passes those in $800 suits from Ralph Lauren and someone sitting on a ripped quilted blanket with an old Dixie cup full of $2.50 in change. Sometimes the businessman will reach down and give a little of his wealth to the desperate gentleman on the ground below him. The juxtaposition of the diametrically opposed financial conditions is sufficient enough for the whole world to be aware. However, what they don’t know is how New York allows these opposites to coexist, even with the hostility that accompanies it.
Instead of focusing on the negatives and sole existence of all the above divides, one can experience New York City with a completely different attitude -- an attitude that understands how unique it is that all the divides not only exist, but find a way to compliment each other and make the city better. The juxtaposed socioeconomic divide, although very large, is a part of what makes the City so interesting. A documentary named “Class Divide” analyzes the complicated relationship of a one block separation between a $50,000 per year school and a low income housing building. Avenues: The World School’s mission statement, in part, is to graduate “great leaders when they can be, good followers when they should be; on their way to well-chosen higher education; and, most importantly, architects of lives that transcend the ordinary” (“Mission”). The students who graduate from this institution grow to be “world citizens,” becoming CEOs, entrepreneurs, humanitarians, and a benefit for the human race. On one morning, you would see cars of the Mercedes, Bentley, Ferrari, and BMW companies pull up to the glass door entrance, the parents walk their children to the door, wish them a nice day, and kiss them goodbye. Watching them from just across the street, stand children who may wish to access this kind of wealth -- the wealth to have an education that allows children to excel and already be in an advantaged position after graduation. The Elliott Chelsea Housing Project, just 115 steps from Avenues, is home to over 4,500 residents. As described by Juwan, a teenage resident, “You don’t know what goes on when I close my door and lock my door at night. It could be no hot water. It could be no cold water. It could be no food” (“Class Divide”). The difference between the resources the children have access to is outstanding. Kindergarteners at Avenues get Ipads on the first day. Residents of the Projects get erratic water temperatures and the uncertainty of a good meal. How these two concepts exist just 115 steps from one another is astonishing to me and, in my opinion, is one of the most fascinating aspects of New York City.
Whether one is black, white, Hispanic, or Asian, anyone can find a place or neighborhood in which they feel most at home. Great examples of this are the tiny towns that represent a part of the world. Resting in lower Manhattan, Little Italy thrives from the ancestors of Italians. One can find an abundance of authentic and understandably tasty Italian food. One can imagine that when greeted with the shining, ‘Little Italy’ sign, an Italian immigrant in the early 1900s would have felt right at home, as with many Ellis Island immigrants. One of the best parts about Little Italy, however, is that Chinatown is just around the corner. Chinatown, as stated by a reviewer on Yelp in 2016, is “as authentic as it ever was -- maybe even more so because more Chinese regions are now represented here. You can taste, smell and touch the cultural nuances walking the streets all hours of the day and night, and the sensory inputs tingle long after you leave” (Y. Yuri) Chinatown, as with other little cultural versions of larger countries, demonstrate exactly how the juxtaposition in New York City is cherished. One can have an Italian pastry for lunch, walk two city blocks, and have a bowl of authentic ramen noodles for dinner. In no other city is this amount of cultural change in such close proximity.
New York City is the capital of the world. Representing almost every nationality one could imagine, the sprawling metropolis is home to every size, race, or gender there is. But, the City so many have grown to love is no stranger to the evil. Destruction, pain, misery, and extreme emergency have been encountered within the 304.6 sq. miles of sky high buildings and sidewalks. The Stock Market crash on September 29, 2008, is said to have unemployed 240,000 people within one month (Amadeo). Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012; the storm damaged all of Manhattan’s subway systems, fires destroyed over 100 homes in Queens, and overall fifty-three were killed because of the tempest. On September 11th, 2001, two planes flew directly into the World Trade Centers, killing two thousand and changing the city forever. These tragic events helped, in large part, to shape the city it is today. The most important impression to take away from these crises is not the collective death toll or unemployment rate. The impact one should realize is how New York as a whole responded to these tragedies. Despite the differences, despite the divides, despite the boundaries both physical and invisible, New Yorkers united to reestablish their city. Shared tragic experiences and grief bound the residents. What New Yorkers thought divided them was overshadowed for the greater purpose of rebuilding and staying in their beloved city.
On any given day, you can pass those with different races, backgrounds, lifestyles, struggles, and achievements than you. In any other place, you could be miles from that person. But in New York, you share the sidewalk regardless of the things that divide you. In fact, you share the sidewalk because of your differences. New York wouldn’t be the same without the people and backgrounds that founded it. The City wouldn’t have the same attraction it has today without the hundreds of protests, shiny lights, angry taxi drivers, wealth, and poverty that defines it. The divides make New York City what it is.
With that being said, is New York City greater, or less, than the sum of its parts? The Big Apple is full of extraordinary attractions that brings tourists across the bridges. But once you cross the bridges, you notice a sense of collective pride and coherence that fills the pungent air. This community is founded on resilience and division. The division, however, does not (generally) result in violence. The physical and invisible divides unite the city in a way only New Yorkers can understand. Because of this, New York City is worth more than the sum of its parts.
Works Cited
Amadeo, Kimberly. "When and Why Did the Stock Market Crash in 2008?" The Balance. N.p., 8 Sept.
2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
Baldwin, James. Nobody Knows My Name. Dial Press, 1961. Print
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