New York Pride

I was on my way to the dog park in Riverside Saturday afternoon with Taetu. He ran into a black lab named Boris and I started talking to Boris’ owner, Anne. Anne was in her late 80’s and her frail frame was topped off by a startlingly white head of hair. She sat hunched on the park bench peering out onto the water through over-sized sunglasses. She started our conversation abruptly. “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world.”
I smiled back at her. I was wearing my purple “I Heart NY” t-shirt, so my affection towards out city was apparent. “New York is wonderful,” I replied benignly.
“No,” she said. “Right here. On this street.” She indicated Riverside behind her, “with this view.” Anne had moved into her fourth floor apartment on Riverside in 1969. “Back then,” she said, “this was a shady area of town.” There were different gangs on Amsterdam and Columbus and Anne generally didn’t venture out after dark. When she went out alone – to the grocery store for instance – she would clutch her “$15” in one hand and her mace in the other. “Did you ever have to use the mace,” I asked. “One time,” she replied, but didn’t elaborate.
Her love of her neighborhood was fierce. “I’ve never been to another city and thought, ‘I could live here.’ I couldn’t live anywhere but on this street.”
“My daughter lived in London for eight years,” she continued, looking me square in the eye. “London is fucking boring.” I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. I was not expecting the f-bomb from Grandma Anne. “The people there have no spark, no electricity. They lack the kind of….life…of people here.” The pride and love she had of her address is not unique to New York. I’m sure there are residents of Topeka, Kansas that feel Topeka is the best place on earth. In New York however, this sentiment is intense and nearly ubiquitous.
I passed a group of women in CP this morning and joined in briefly on their conversation as Taetu sniffed their toy poodle’s butt. One of the women was visiting New York for the first time, and the rest of the group was showing their shock at the idea.
“You love it,” one of the New Yorkers said to the first-time visitor. It wasn’t a question, but a statement. A fact. “I Heart NY” isn’t just a t-shirt slogan, it is the New York Creed.
New York pride permeates every nook and cranny of this city – from what’s on tap (Brooklyn Ale) to the New York-centric art in Herald Square. New Yorkers will dispense the fine attributes of the city at large to people outside the city, but within the borders of the East and Hudson rivers, that pride drills down to the neighborhood. A man last night actually said to me, “these are the best four blocks in New York.” Wow. The regional pride is now down to the block.
Jerry Seinfeld echoed these sentiments in a recent interview with Parade Magazine. Asked if he could live anywhere outside of New York he said: “Never in a million years. I couldn’t live four blocks from where I live now.”
Sometimes I’ll make the mistake of referencing “Manhattan” to friends at work and they’ll immediately correct me. “Actually SOHO,” they’ll say. Defining your locale in such general terms as Manhattan is like telling a Spaniard you’re from the Western Hemisphere – a little broad. In fact, if you told the Spaniard you were from New York City, they would likely respond with, “yes…but what borough?”
Neighborhoods like Chelsea and the Village actually have their own newspapers. Advertisers have caught onto this neighborhood pride as well. “Vitawater. The way Spanish Harlem rehydrates.”
People wear their metro stop on t-shirts. That’s specific. I mean, it’s not enough you live in the upper Westside – are we talking the 1 or the B train? It’s the difference of three blocks, but to New Yorkers, those three blocks can mean the world.