There are a lot of things i love about New York City. But the one thing I will always love the most about this city is the unity it brings among people who could not be more different.
If one thing is true about New York, it’s that it is a conglomeration of different ethnicities, races, genders, social standings, and personalities. I think perhaps you can get on a 5 train at rush hour and not find a single person exactly like you in the entire cart. But after thinking about what Lewis Mumford deemed the be “a city,” I started to think about my own definition and perception of a city, most particularly, my city.
Mumford called the city “a theatre of social action” and a space of “significant collective drama.” And I find that this could not be more true. Although we are all so different, each and every single one of us has a role- as a New Yorker- a role that cannot be played by anyone else. We are all New Yorkers; we are all commuters; we are all city-dwellers. This unity is what allows for us to empathize with our fellow neighbors, even though even the concept of “neighbors” is foreign in this city. This special role that we all play is what allows us to collectively sigh and smile at each other with wary eyes when trains stall on the morning commute. You may be unable to find a single thing in common with the others riding the Roosevelt Island Tram, but there is one thing in common: everyone plays the role of a “New Yorker.”
I took what I knew and thought of our roles as “New Yorkers” into the thoughts of Mumford and into the landscape of Madison Square Park. Here, I watched us all perform our show of social action in the theatre of New York City. I saw that there were benches filled with people; virtual strangers sharing an inch of space. I saw that these “New Yorkers,” (as harsh as it may sound) knew how to completely tune out and ignore the people sitting less than an inch away from them. I watched “New Yorkers” stand on line for Shake Shack, most of them on their phones; a few reading a newspaper or a document of some sort. I saw nannies or mothers pushing babies in strollers, chatting with other nannies and avoiding stepping in the path of aimless pigeons. I saw dogs being walked by either their owner or a dogwalker, stopping to sniff the butts of other dogs in their path. I saw the occasional tourist and I was amused by the fact that I was automatically able to pick out who these were. As self-centered as it may sound, in our theatre, we are able to pick out those who are brand new or those who do not necessarily hold the role that we do. The tourists I spotted were sporting huge backpacks and were walking in a collective group. They walked slow, as if they were taking everything in, as if they were truly seeing what was around them. The looks on their faces a mixture of calmness and wonderment.
Madison Square Park is a great example of just one of the many stages within the theatre that is New York City. Strangers to each other and all on a different path throughout our day, we are all a part of the same script in our role as united New Yorkers. Most of the people walking through the park know to keep a brisk pace, and those who prefer to stroll stay off the path of those who are looking to make a quick entrance and exit.
I thought some more about what Mumford meant when described the city as a “space of significant collective drama.” It took me a while to understand what this meant, but then I realized just how well I know what Mumford is speaking of. I’ve been a New Yorker all my life and the personality of a New Yorker is a second nature to me. But for someone from a more urban area, such as Portland or Colorado, New Yorkers are a strange breed of people.
Our significant collective drama is who we are shaped to be. We are a fast-talking, fast-paced, habit and culture centered people. We move at a pace that we ourselves cannot even keep up with, we live our lives on a whim. Our daily routine is purely dependent on the city we live in; we tailor our lives according to our “significant collective drama.” We make our work schedules based on our commutes. We choose our classes and sometimes even our colleges to reflect on the way we live our lives around the city.
It is this unity, the one that lies beneath Mumford’s principles of “social action” and “collective drama” that allows for this city to thrive. It is why New York is deemed the “best city in the world.” It is what fuels our stage, our theatre, our space and it is what I love the most about my city.
If New York City is a stage, then we are its actors and all the world is a show.
