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I love New York.
It’s a cliche; how many people have seen the I (heart) NY t-shirts, or heard
this phrase in some way, shape or form. But for me, cliche is truth; it’s a
love I’ve had since I was a kid making semi-annual visits to Manhattan with my
family. Although the tourist-y stuff was fun to do, that wasn’t why the city
wormed its way into my heart. I couldn’t express it then, but now that I’ve
been a resident of the city for over a year, I can:
It’s the feeling that there’s so much going on, and that if I don’t do it
all, I’ll be missing something. But at the same time, there’s the flip side:
that there’s so much to do that I can’t possibly do it all, but having the
potential to do so is utterly tantalizing.
Every single time I leave my apartment and trek down Broadway, I feel the
electricity in the air. No matter what, someone is talking loudly on their cell
phone. Street vendors mark their territory selling fruit, or shoes, or this
week’s movies. Dogs bark at each other. Mothers take their crying babies into
the toy stores to appease them. Others race to and from the gyms. Never mind the
casual shoppers, the people trying desperately to catch a train, hail a cab,
miss a bus. People cross the street when they feel like it, not worrying too
much about the oncoming traffic of cars, as the bicyclists are so much crazier.
What a far cry this is from suburbia.
But of course, what I’ve described is only a small slice of New York. I
don’t get out to the other boroughs too much, but when I do, it’s a
different world. Many, because there are so many neighborhoods. Brighton Beach
is another planet compared to Astoria, compared to South Bronx. Even within
Manhattan, there’s the upper peninsula known as Washington Heights, a place I
would gladly move to; not just because the rent’s so much cheaper, but because
it has one of the most beautiful spaces, Fort Tryon Park, I’ve ever come
across. Miles and miles of undisturbed greenery, still not quite discovered by
the trendy. New York is a city of paradoxes trying to coexist, rather
uncomfortably so. Every day I come across a new one. For a city so keen on
individuality, why do most succumb to the Starbucks shops on every corner, or
the Duane Reade drugstores opposite? And even if they get their coffee and
bagels from the kiosks, why do they all bear a disturbing similarity to each
other?
But the questions fade away each time I return to the city. Just last week, I
took a much needed vacation and headed down to Texas for Bouchercon. I had a
great time, and learned much about myself–some of which I hadn’t
particularly wanted to learn. But when the last day rolled around, I was ready
to come back. The flight back wasn’t terribly eventful–I forgive the poor
screaming child who disturbed my sleep time and time again. But when the 747
landed at LaGuardia airport, when I picked up my luggage, and hailed a cab, I
was feeling more myself again. But then, as night fell, the cab made a detour
onto the 59th street bridge from Queens into Manhattan. I looked up and saw the
skyline, with its shimmering neon orange, green and red colors, loom over me.
Building upon building rising high into the sky. I felt the colors envelop me,
embrace the taxicab, and beckon. It took my breath away. Perhaps many others
would have felt suffocated, would have told that taxi to turn right back to take
them back to wherever they came from. I just wanted to run towards it. A mere 20
minutes later, I was back in my room, unpacking my luggage, slowly returning my
equilibrium to normal.
This is my home.
**************
People tell me that I’m becoming more of a “New Yorker.” I think I know
what they mean by it; that my pace has quickened, my stride has lengthened, I
can affect a scowl in nanoseconds. I always dressed in black but somehow the
clothes I pick now fit me better, are more elegant, more urbane. I stand
straighter, am more confident. This isn’t totally as a result of city living,
but the other reasons are for a future column, perhaps. But I think what makes
me a New Yorker, if you will, is that I keep up with the city. I read the papers
every day, whether in hard copy or online. The Post and Daily News are my blood,
the Times feeds my brain. Yet though I read the news, I also try to pick it
apart.
Reading the news can be a trying experience. At first glance, it seems like
it’s just relating the facts. The reporters are giving the news as it’s
meant to be. But of course, that’s hardly ever the case. A newspaper, an
online magazine, whatever the medium, each has a bias. It can be political,
social, editorial, personal, but it’s always there. Sometimes it’s more
insidious. Sometimes it’s a function of a person trying to cover his or her
own ass, or someone else’s. Much of the time it’s bullshit.
The Central Park Jogger case has been in New York news for a while now, ever
since a psychopath made a jailhouse confession back in January that he
alone–and not the 5 teens who were tried and convicted (with the exception of
one)–beat and raped a young woman jogging in Central Park in 1989. Back then,
the case polarized everybody. A white woman, five black teenage boys, it was
what seemed to be an example of “wilding.” There was a tremendous frenzy by
everybody, and in hindsight, the travesties of justice are truly amazing.
Forensic evidence ignored or misunderstood, lousy lawyering, abrasive police
interrogation, you name it. The full truth will take years to come out.
But what’s amazing right now is that there are still so many who simply
cannot, and will not, let go of the story–they cannot accept that maybe the
truth they believed in so much is not a truth at all. That maybe one person did
act alone. Today’s New York Daily News led off with the story that doctors who
treated the jogger believe “emphatically” that the injuries could not have
possibly been due to one person. Well, it’s all well and good to say so, but
when did medical doctors start doing crime scene analysis. They don’t spend
their daily lives looking at horrific injuries inflicted from rapes and
beatings–that is, sadly, left up to the coroners, forensic pathologists, and
the cops. If any of these doctors actually testified in court about this
“emphatic belief” they’d be pilloried by defense lawyers. But it makes for
a few hundred more sold copies and stokes the public's fire. It also confuses
the issue and makes me shake my head.
This case isn’t over by a long shot, and I’ll be following every word of it
in the news. But I won’t be believing a lot of what’s in the media, and
I’ll try to make my own conclusions. It just frustrates me that I can see so
much and the vast majority of people won’t even bother to analyze what’s
being reported.
Sarah Weinman
27 October 2002
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