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So now we come to New York City, the incomparable, the brilliant star city of parodies, the forty-ninth state, a law unto itself, the Cyclopean paradox, the inferno with no out-of-bounds, the supreme expression of both the miseries and the splendors of contemporary civilization, the Macedonia of the United States. It meets the most severe test that may be applied to definition of a metropolis- it stays up all night. But also it becomes a small town when it rains. Paradox? New York is at once the climactic synthesis of America, and yet the negation of American in that it has so many characteristics called un-American. One friend of mine, indignant that it seems impossible for any American city to develop on the pattern of Paris or Vienna, always says that Manhattan is like Constantinople- not the Instanbul of old Stamboul but of the Pera or Levantine side. He meant not merely the trite fact that New York is polygot, but that it is full of people, like the Levantines, who are interested basically in only two things, living well and making money. I would prefer a different analogy- that only Instanbul, of all the cities in the world, has as enchanting and stimulating a profile. (en) |
