The Manhattan Experiment

I went to Manhattan to visit my little brother last weekend. It amazes me how many people have journeyed to The Big Apple. It’s as if it were a rite of passage. To go there is to add to the lapel of pins and badges we metaphorically show off to our friends and family. “Look where I’ve been”.

It’s not naked braying or something untoward. It is just a Bucket List item that we proudly check-off or sheepishly admit the omission.

Ok so I’ve joined the ranks of the checkers and I was not all that excited to do so. You see I’m not a big city kind of guy. I understand why on a sunny Friday afternoon the 400 Hwy is slammed with traffic like rats evacuating a sinking ship.

Manhattan is like Toronto but with more history, if you can call it history. We are talking about a Country who’s effectively 4 years old to the comparatively middle-aged Egypt. However it does feel substantial and purposely built by craftsmen. It feels like it wants to stay, wants to exist for a long long time. It’s this gravitas that makes it unique.

The Brooklyn Bridge for example was started in 1867. A rudimentary automobile was still 20 years from even being invented so it was the horse and buggy that moved the masses. Still they built this monumental edifice, the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time, rising 30 stories over the mostly frigid water and today it hosts 6 lanes of vehicles. It’s bloody awe inspiring to behold it.

It was the first city built for the modern age. The planners and builders of Manhattan boldly and audacious created an engineering marvel. A city that would become known as the center of the Universe to so many.

It accomplishes something else astonishing. It rivals Paris, Rome, Venice and London as an icon. Of course Hollywood being American helped. How many images have we been bombarded with in our lives? Central Park, Statue of Liberty, Twin Towers, Museum of Natural History, Empire State Building and the list goes on and on. Movies, songs and literature have seared this manifestation into our cultural psyche.

Personally I couldn’t get the Wayne Newton standard “Danke Schoen” out of my head. The one line played on a constant loop “...I recall, Central Park in fall”. Admittedly my exposure to that was from Ferris Bueller but if I’m being honest...I loved it. It felt right sashaying about with that soundtrack, like having your mother bring you some warm coco while swaddling you in a blanket in front of a crisp fire.

It wasn’t all great though. Seldom does the dream live up to the reality and Manhattan is no exception. It’s dreadfully full of people.

One gets the feeling that if the last ice age hadn’t deposited a large basin of too soft to build soil in the middle...there would be no park at all. It would be endless concrete canyons. That despite all its charms and accomplishments, it feels as though you are among a devastating number of stacked shoeboxes housing human specimens in an immense scientific tool chest.

Also everyone has their own little fashion uniforms it would seem. Wall Street tycoon? Slick suit, skinny tie and coifed hair it is then. You have inner pain? Boots, skinny jeans and hipster hat.

It is as if even the entire populous is on a cat walk. “Now here is Sarah at a sidewalk cafe sipping champagne and sporting a trendy handbag that says I’m available but don’t approach unless you can afford the lifestyle.”

Manhattan has been checked off however my pin doesn’t feel so shiny. I’ve left my little brother behind and I’d like him returned from the experiment unharmed please.

“Live in New York once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.”

-Baz Luhrmann

Life is complicated and far from perfect but it is still great