City Life Viewed By O’Hara and Ballard Has Modern-Day Implications

          I agree with O’Hara when he talks fondly of New York in his poem Personal Poem, as well as his other poems. His poems are seeped with imagery that paints New York as a wonderful place and it seems like the speaker of the poem has special connotations with places in the city that to others would seem ordinary. Even the gritty parts of New York are painted with positivity as O’Hara says:

“It’s my lunch hour, so I go 

for a walk among the hum-colored   

cabs. First, down the sidewalk   

where laborers feed their dirty   

glistening torsos sandwiches

and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets   

They protect them from falling

bricks, I guess.”

          These lines remind me of my own New York City memories. One aspect of my college essay was discussing the memorable moments I have in my own neighborhood. The lines below from my college essay remind me of the nostalgia O’Hara has when he discusses New York.  

          The streets that I wandered and learned to love make up the vast city of New York, which I call home. I memorized every inch, from the cracks in the sidewalk to the homeless people’s signature corners. The brick wall on the south side of Houston between C and D that I came to memorize every morning from kindergarten to my senior year while walking to school– excited eyes turning into tired eyes. These streets capture everything. They capture the metamorphosis of the carefree child, who sang songs while walking down them, to the teenager still singing– but now too soft to be heard. They captured moments on corners: The corner of first kisses, 9th and A, to the corner of first coming out, 7th and B.

          I learned and cataloged those streets like that knowledge was more important than anything.

          Even though I love New York, the dystopian view of city life painted by Ballard in Billennium also resonated with me. The cramped living situation depicted made the reader feel suffocated at times. The idea of an overpopulated city reminded me of New York, specifically of the gentrification that has been spreading across the city. Many people are forced to move due to increase rent. Gentrification causes neighborhoods to lose their soul as well as lose their original residents. Billennium and it’s dystopian feel made me think of the byproducts of gentrification, and the migration of people from suburbia into the city In my neighborhood, local pizza places that have been around for decades, such as Nino’s Pizza, has been replaced with Starbucks and other local chains. This is a different type of nightmare than the one painted in Billennium but is one nightmare faced by people of this city

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