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December 27, 2006
Greetings from yuletime New York
I was in New York in the early part of December, and this is part of what I put down in my little red book I carried around there... Happy Holidays!
"They've got cars
Big as bars
They've got rivers of gold"
-so sang Shane McGowan of The Pogues in "Fairytale of New York" (my and many Irish's choice of Christmas song). It is true that in this time of year more than any other that New York really comes across as a Big Department Store. I am here on a mission to find good design, an inspiration to my studio back in Seattle, but bad designs abound here in New York as in any other place; from a restaurant's sliding doors that never properly close and no one can figure out how to open, to a hand-written menu and storefront signs that are plain ugly. This fact really shouldn't be a surprise for me, but it hits particularly close home this time. Maybe it's because I am desperate for good examples this time.
Not that I didn't see good stuff here: the museums here are always bigger and deeper than you can ever prepare yourself to, and there's plenty of great street art -- real original graffiti. But at the end of the day, I had to question why I had to cross the continent to come here in search of inspiration. What was it that compelled me so to make this trip?
Then, as I stroll around East Village, Williamsburg, and then Central Park, on this uncharacteristically glorious, warm winter day, it hits me: the appeal of this megalopolis dwells not so much within its authentic sophistication or genuine creativity (these things, like a good cup of coffee or a well-poured pint of Guinness, isn't easy to find anywhere, period), but in the sheer swagger of the place, the attitude of the culture here.
The city is one of the oldest. Sure, there are plenty of other cities in the world with longer history. But if you limit the scope to just the modern commerce and migration of people (which only got going in the late 19th Century), you can't deny that New York has just as much history as Paris or London. History, taken as a culmination of stories, about and on places and people there, compound, tend to lend its inhabitant a sense of place and belonging. That's my theory, anyway, on why in New York, even in today's uncertain political future and security, self-contentment is tactile in the air.
As someone said, confidence brews appeal, and I remain just as attracted to this city as I first laid my eyes on it, fifteen years ago.
Posted by Akira at December 27, 2006 11:35 PM
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