In the preface of his novel Nigger of the Narcissus, Joseph Conrad wrote “My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel–it is, before all, to make you see.” This is exactly what Christoph Lindner tries to do in his book Imagining New York City. He does an exceptional job of trying to paint a picture of the life of New York. He cites numerous sources, and his intentions are to inform us about the “street walkers” of New York. He paints a picture about the leisurely flaneur, the Broadway Promenade with it’s air of prestige, the uncaring, “blase” metropolitan attitude, and the fear that the sidewalk can instill. However, even with all the citations in the world, it doesn’t change the fact that what Lindner is writing are generalizations.
Lindner’s book gives a general idea of an image of the New Yorker. He gives us the big picture, but what his book lacks is a close up. Who are New Yorkers really? What troubles them individually? How do they feel about their community, their city? How has New York shaped them as a person. What we need from Lindner is for him to tell us about the individual. For him to do that he would need to actually talk to New Yorkers. He needs to actually interact with the street walkers he portrays in his book. I think he would find some moving stories if he were to walk the streets of NY and talk to people, and see how they live from day to day. He may find what the creators of Humans of New York and Globe Trotters found: individuals. I read some of the posts from Humans of New York and Globe Trotters, and what I recognized were the individual and amazing stories of the people. Each of them had taken different paths in life that led them to the cameras that captured their story. I feel like those individual stories are what makes New York the city that it is.
All of this made me realize that, between the PBS documentary and Lindner’s book, I didn’t really understand or connect with the citizens of New York. I definitely felt sorry for the people who had rough lives and I was touched by the words from famous authors, but I didn’t have a connection to these people. They were just this group of people who I got an inkling of information about. However, when I read about the stories of the Globe Trotters, people who were escaping their home countries out of fear or necessity, and people who were astonished and awestruck by the city of New York. I got to know people, and it made them important to me because, in a way, I felt like they were a friend. I knew personal things about them. I read a post from the Humans of New York about a men who had to come to terms with his sexual identity. He realized after years went by that his sexual identity doesn’t define him, and that there were so many things that made him the person he was. I felt like I truly knew him and I felt like it helped me learn New York better. Lindner says that the sidewalks are a place for people to express their identities. This is exactly what we see in Humans of New York and Globe Trotters.
The people of New York have been shaped by their city, but New York has also been shaped by its citizens. If I plan to actually understand and experience New York, then I must interact with the people who have made the city what it is. It is not enough to just walk around and think I know a place just because I’ve seen apartment buildings, museums, and plays. If I intend to be a mindful traveler and delve deeply and experience fully, then I must talk to the people and get to know New York from the perspective of the people who actually live there.
– February 12, 2016
