How I got here: Almost four decades ago, I moved to New York City on a Greyhound bus. My parents, both New Yorkers, had moved to upstate New York when my brother and I were young, so our family had skipped a generation of Big Apple life. I had come to reclaim it.
I was returning from a post-college year on the road – on the “gringo trail” of low-budget hotels, street food and grand adventures in South America. I wasn’t ready to stop traveling, but it was time to grow up – I needed a job, and I wanted a career.
Choosing to live in New York wasn’t obvious to me. Before I traveled, I had lived in a smaller city I thought was more manageable. New York was and is an overwhelming megalopolis, which intimidated me as it does many who consider placing themselves at its unpredictable mercy.
But as I considered my options, I felt its pull. The allure of living in the home of my parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents was no small thing. I had spent plenty of time here, visiting friends and family and working at summer jobs. I could navigate the subway and find budget restaurants; I knew east from west; I knew when to make eye contact with strangers and when to avoid it.
In addition to the draw of the familiar and familial, I was drawn to the certainty that New York would offer me just the opposite: the opportunity to explore the uncommon, the unknown or at least the untried. I knew that the very thing that overwhelmed me – the city’s sheer size and volatility – would lead to thrilling discoveries. I envisioned traveling abroad for the cost of a subway fare, sampling culture and cuisine both haute and humble, tracking down family landmarks and quirky off-the-beaten-path destinations. I knew New York as a city of immigrants from both decades and weeks ago, from other countries and from other parts of the U.S. The prospect of hearing dozens of languages, including and especially my beloved Spanish, seduced me. I was fascinated by the prospect of observing how people with such different assumptions and expectations about the world managed to live next to each other in shared and limited places.
And so I joined E.B. White’s “greatest” New York: the city “of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something” (emphasis mine). Whether I am an immigrant (or a settler, as he called us newcomers) or a returnee come to deepen my family’s roots, I have adopted this city as my own, ultimately raising a family and building a career here and developing a whole lot of favorite places. I have never ceased to love the greatest city in the world.
Over the decades, I have continued to travel around the country and the world. Exploring new places opens my senses actively and urgently. I notice; I experience. City streets in particular offer endless opportunities for observation and appreciation. An artistically designed manhole cover on the ground. A captivating aroma wafting from a food cart. Unfamiliar music blaring from the window of a passing car. A shop window displaying some unknown fashion or housewares or ironic signage. Quirky street art, striking architectural details, unexpected views. Every step, every view, might bring some new frisson.
I have tried, and present here for others to try, to experience my own city with the sensibilities of a mindful traveler, but with the cozy insider knowledge that comes from being at home. I lose myself in the novel experiences I describe here, and yet I sleep in my own bed at night. The people who live in the communities I visit are, for the most part, strangers, but in the end, they are my neighbors.
Since retiring a year ago, I have finally found the time to travel. For many decades, I worked in government and nonprofit organizations in New York, seeking to strengthen families and communities through health care, childcare, employment opportunities and other services. I’ve worked in the Bronx and Queens and Manhattan, commuting by subway and bicycle, for the most part far from the glamor of midtown. It’s been deeply rewarding, a lot of fun, and far too busy. I give thanks every day for the women and men who plan, build and evaluate innovative city services, typically with little compensation and even less appreciation.
In this next chapter of my life, I am celebrating the riches of New York City’s great communities rather than addressing their deficits (as the best community services should anyway). In my walks, I explore what makes geographic areas in the city feel like distinctive neighborhoods, learning who lives there, what kind of housing they live in, where they shop and eat, what languages they speak, what institutions they have built or inherited – such as houses of worship, schools, libraries, healthcare facilities, parks and transportation options. I note if and how they are responding to the relentless forces of gentrification. I pursue the places neighborhoods boast about, their greatest hits of historic markers, public art, edgy or significant architecture, museums and stores. But, more important to me, I seek out the unremarkable places where not-necessarily remarkable people reside and gather. Wherever possible, I try to talk to the locals, either through chance encounters or pre-arranged visits.
The neighborhoods: The New York City Department of City Planning identifies 339 neighborhoods in New York City.
Realistically, I expect to visit only a portion of them, so I’ve tried to select diverse areas: densely populated ones, those with single-family houses; coastal areas, enclaves of particular immigrant groups, neighborhoods with my own family connections or institutions or architecture of particular interest to me. There’s a big city out there.
Caveat and aspirations: I am aware that my status as a (very short-term) visitor – not to mention, for some communities, someone who looks different from local residents – creates a certain distance from many of the people I might meet or how I am even perceived as a stranger with a cellphone camera. I try to respect the people I am visiting by not photographing them without their consent, and appreciating but not fetishizing their local amenities and institutions. I embrace the diversity of the traditions they bring to the city we share; at the same time, I recognize what we have in common: the subway, the schools, a mayor, our perennially disappointing sports teams. and fickle weather, our simple humanity. In the end, we are fellow citizens in a complicated city filled with phenomena both familiar and foreign. And, it must be said, a city with enormous and obvious inequality. While recognizing the humanity of all New Yorkers is not a substitute for rational, compassionate public policy, it is a prerequisite. I hope these observations contribute to the appreciation of our neighbors across these five breathtaking boroughs.