New York City: a Remembrance

I had no desire to get to Jerusalem, no expectation of living in Athens, little interest in Rome. I was eighteen. What did I know then about Paris? My whole aim was to live in New York—where I have lived practically ever since.

New York was not across the sea, and once there, a human being could live. It was a city. It was The City. There was wickedness in it, there were women—maybe there was even one woman; there were people who talked about poetry—and people who actually wrote poetry, or who made paintings, the next best thing. Then, there were adventurers, millionaires, gangsters, characters—New York contained just about every sort of person.

Yes, I was once excited by this city—but that was long ago. I am less excitable nowadays. And often I wonder: what would New York as it is now mean to me, if I, again eighteen, were to come here for the first time? Would the city have the enchantment it did? I think not, and I blame the city for what it has become, rather than the young man I cannot possibly be again…

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