New York City: Bent but Not Broken

I was not born in New York City, but I have grown up as an adult here. I will always remember the moment I saw the New York City skyline and fell in love. I was twenty-three and in my first cab ride on the Long Island Expressway driving in from John F. Kennedy Airport. I knew I was home. I went back to Arizona, wrote my résumé and moved here six months later. My admiration for its magnificence has not diminished in the past forty years, not even a little bit. I still get misty-eyed when I walk around this city. It happened a couple of weeks ago when I saw the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. People from far and wide were lined up Fifth Avenue eagerly waiting for the big moment when the tree burst with color. I got to marvel at it just walking to my physical therapist. Visitors from around the world come to admire and photograph the Empire State Building. I see it simply walking to the gym. Amazing to me. I do not believe there is anyone who loves NYC more than I do. Maybe as much, but never more. My family and friends know that when I die, I want to be cremated and put in a firecracker and exploded over Manhattan, so I can stay in the city for eternity.

I take it personally when she gets hurt. It is unfathomable to me why anyone would want to bomb or destroy New York City. On February 26, 1993, I stood in the executive dining room on the 60th floor of the Chase Manhattan Bank on Wall Street and watched in stunned horror as people on the roof of the World Trade Center waved their arms at helicopters hovering above the towers. Black smoke billowed up from below. The chef said, “This is a terrorist attack.” It took my breath away. The words “What did she ever do to you?” ran over and over in my head. September 11, 2001, was a knife to my heart. Every day I wished I could take away the pain infused in every inch of the city. I would close my eyes and imagine my arms around Manhattan as I whispered, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

New York City is not a place, it is a presence. To be right here right now is to know why New York City is as authentic as it gets. It is a display of tenacity and perseverance. Restaurateurs with barely two nickels to rub together are hanging shower curtains to separate tables, building outdoor castles to keep their people employed and serving dinner to socially starved New Yorkers. The subways have never been cleaner. Macy’s had their parade. They scrapped decades of well-laid plans and re-created the largest parade in the world with only months to pull it off, and that part of Thanksgiving remained the same. Bergdorf Goodman set up their seventh-floor café — Alice in Wonderland like-chairs, cloth-covered tables, boxwood trees and all — outside on Fifth Avenue. Assuming the kitchen was not moved as well, the distance from the kitchen to the table is seven floors up and down, back and forth. Imagine your legs at the end of a shift.

There are so many unsung heroes, but all who have stayed and are sticking it out are the ones whom we need to applaud, whatever their job. They are here. They are the people who are New York Strong. We begrudgingly accept the New York lame because they are also a part of who we are: the 7,000 people who celebrated a wedding in Brooklyn last month and did not wear masks; the 300 people who gathered for a party in midtown Manhattan last week; all of Staten Island every day. 

You can feel the struggle and pull on every mental, physical, spiritual and emotional fiber of this city. People are working harder than ever. But we are doing it. We may bitch and complain, we New Yorkers, but we do not whine, and we do not throw in the towel. I have never been prouder to live in this city than I am right now. I love it now more than ever and raise a middle finger to those who ever doubt us.