Visions of Gotham: Topics in NYC from 1945 to Present

Write a short biography of yourself.  This is the task I have sat down to accomplish, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m suffering from an identity crisis, or simply a terrible case of writer’s block.  I mean, this really shouldn’t be that difficult. I’ve written ten page papers on Dickensian theory, but I can’t write one page describing who I am.  I suppose it is because putting my bio on paper requires me to take stock of my life so far, and choose the aspects of myself that I want presented to the world.  Since this is a seminar on the peopling of New York, I suppose my identity as a New Yorker should figure prominently, or at least be factored in at some point.
I guess I should begin at the beginning; the bare bone facts, that shouldn’t be too hard. My name is Miryam Sperka, I am twenty years old, born on April 29th, 1989 in Brooklyn, NY, where I have lived my whole life.  I am an only child, and no, it wasn’t weird for me, I never knew anything different.  Here is where it gets a bit more difficult.  I attended a local Jewish elementary school, and then went on to Manhattan High School for Girls, a Jewish private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.  Some might assume that it is during my high school years that I developed my individual identity as a New Yorker, but it actually began far earlier than that.
For as long as I can remember, my mother has been taking me to the city. “The City” of course means Manhattan. Only tourists or newcomers call it Manhattan, those of us who are fortunate enough to be born here know there is no other place worthy of the title “city” other than our city.  Anyways, my mother is one of those people who knows everything about everywhere; the kind of person you want to be with all the time, because regardless of where you end up, you know you’ll have fun and discover something new and exciting.  I think I was the only three year old that visited the Met, MoMa, the Tenement Museum, and an English opera and thought it as normal as going on the swings.  We would spend every Sunday exploring a different part of the city;  Soho, the Lower East Side, the Upper West Side, the Flat Iron District.  By the time I was five, I was very cosmopolitan.  I felt equally as comfortable in the Village as I did on Madison Avenue; New York was my playground.  Building on the foundations my mother had laid, my appreciation of New York deepened throughout my years in high school.  With most of my waking hours spent in school on E 70th Street between Lex and Third , we were frequent visitors of the Frick, the Met, the Asia Historical Society, and last but certainly not least, Central Park.
After spending some time in New England on vacation, I realized the extent to which being a New Yorker pervaded my whole being.  On a purely surface level, my goodness, everyone drives so slowly outside of New York! And what’s with the dirty looks, people? Cars have horns for a reason!  In addition to our incredibly different driving styles, we, New Yorkers, stand out from other people in so many other ways.  Our speech is faster, our tone a bit more dynamic, and, what the heck, why hold back now,  we are slightly more interesting.  But then again, that feeds into one more stereotype of New Yorkers, we are a bit self centered.
Of course most of my identity is not indigenous to my being a New Yorker.  I am passionate about music, dance, and travel, and I would never turn down a good book and a cappuccino.  My life centers around my religion, my community, and I feel very strongly about the community service activities I am a part of.  I am very attached to the six year old autistic boy I work with, and there are few joys that compare to the feeling I get when he makes eye contact with me and smiles.  I can’t even begin to articulate the fulfillment I felt after spending a few weeks on two different occasions in an orphanage in Pinsk, Belarus.  There are few things as powerful as the love that is given by children who have nothing to give but love.  My family is of utmost importance to me, I don’t think there is anything in the world that could separate us.
Well, there it is in a nutshell.  I’m sure I’ve left things out, and included things I might regret later.  But that’s what I can do for now.  Now that wasn’t so bad.