The Imaginary City: Popular Culture and Impressions of New York City

New York is one of those cities that exists in some "other place" than the geographical space it occupies on the map; it escapes itself to get into the consciousness. It calls some people like a siren, casting webs of glitter and promise over their dreams. The city is hard to get a glimpse of (my reason for choosing the painting above) because its cocooned by myth and allusion, shaped by projected dreams, shadowed by rumors, legends, and statistics. As a first time visitor, I'm probably not entitled to waste a lot of ink on the subject - but first impressions stick and I found myself turning to the places I'd encountered New York before to see how they may have shifted or sharpened my focus.

Leaving the airport, the cab I took seemed to swoop (dangerous as any predatory bird) downward toward a city that rose as green towers out of the mist. It was early morning and the water and the mist and the new light all conspired to color the city in shades of aqua and creamy pearl... Later, on the streets, I felt the rhythm and breathless pacing of Midtown. At first, I felt like I was being swept off of my feet, but then I found a way to get into the crowd and be carried along with it. There was energy in all that motion and a perilous sort of beauty -- and maybe, most of all, the exhilaration of being completely unknown in the center of so many other unknown faces. You could be a new person every single time you walked those streets!

The most beautiful introduction to New York that I ever received came in the prose of Mark Helprin in Winter's Tale. I got to stand where it's cover photo was taken and the pulse and beauty (largely unnoticed by everyone on the move) of Grand Central surprised me (though the wedding pictures being snapped right in the middle of the frenzy did not!).

 My first musical introduction the city came via Rush's "Camera Eye," and I can report that Neil's lyrics were true! I got to behold:
"An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm
Race the oncoming night
They chase through the streets of Manhattan
Head-first humanity
Pause at a light
Then flow through the streets of the city..."
but unlike the narrator, I never felt like I entirely caught "the pulse," though I did mention to a dear friend and city-dweller that I thought that the city could be used as a training ground for confidence. Once you've got the nerve to chase down a bus or defy traffic to get where you're going, you can do anything!  (Also, in true Rush-obsession mode, I did spot Geddy Lee in New York! His face was on a telephone booth advertising the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction of Yes. Only me...)

A more recent, toe-tapping song that seems made to echo through those urban canyons is Coheed and Cambria's "Bridge and Tunnel." My heart did not get "lost in the Hudson," but I gained a better understanding of why people love the city!

More than anything else, my imagining about New York have been shaped by Law and Order and I found myself peering around as if Detective Logan might materialize eating a hot dog at a street stand. I certainly could have used Lennie to guide me up and down the streets! I didn't get to adventure to the street named for Jerry. Worse still, despite the show's quip that, "This is New York, bodies turn up in all kinds of places" they did not turn up on my hotel room television and I did not get to enjoy the meta-experience of watching the show with the city outside. I also (to the credit of good tourists everywhere) resisted the urge to pet the horses ridden by the mounted police!

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my most recent New York popular culture association. I doubt very much that I'll ever get to see the performance itself, but as I entered the city I saw giant signs painted on the front of buildings and grinned and grinned and thought, "[I] just happen to be / In the greatest city in the world!"





 And one last impression: The mournful wail of an ambulance stuck in traffic made me freeze on the spot. It sounded like an escaping soul and I wondered why no one else seemed to notice or be bothered by it. I hope it made it through and caught up with that soul before it took its leave, but I doubt I'll ever forget the sad sound of it. Maybe out-of-work banshees head for the city, too...