New York City, New York
June 12, 1983

Dear Folks,

I walked into the explosive sights and sounds of New York City five days ago and was swept into another dimension--where time never rests, where the imagination is bombarded constantly by stimuli,like a gargantuan arcade.

From the moment I left the Staten Island ferry and ventured into the deep canyons of Manhatten's skyscraper forest, it was "sink or swim." In all eighty blocks, from lower Manhatten's Wall Street district to Central Park, I was swept along in a river of three-piece suits, briefcases, shopping bags, and loud tape players hanging from the shoulders of gyrating teen-aged boys.

Several days before, traveling Route 9 from New Jersey, I'd been told that there are 9.5 milllion people living in New York City. On the day I arrived, I was sure every one of them had decided to come downtown. At one point, I stood behind the steaming wagon of a sidewalk food vendor in awe of the mass of humanity and the architecture that engulfed me.

I marvelled at the vitality reverberating from every street and avenue. The city moves and breathes every minute of the day and night.

Walking from First Avenue to Eighth Avenue yesterday, I passed a Puerto Rican street carnival, the banks of six nations, the airline offices of ten countries, dozens of restaurants offering cusine ranging from French to Indian, and street vendors hawking everything from Italian ice desserts to Greek newspapers.

It would be wrong to think New York's Manhatten district is some sort of materialistic circus, where money and vanity obliterate the human side. Contrary to those who portray the city as cold and selfish, I found New Yorkers to be as healthily "human" as people anywhere. The problem is that in a city as overpowering as New York, the numbers and grandness tend to distract one's attention from the personal dramas being played out on every corner.

Before I entered the city, I was apprehensive about my safety. I had been told repeatedly the city was crime-ridden, the people rude and concerned only with themselves. I envisioned silent, smileless faces. Wrong. For every grouch I've passed in New York, I've seen ninety-nine others laughing or in lively conversation.

It's true that New Yorkers--as do most Americans--love their money and possessions. It's just not true that they won't help one another.

I'll tell you what happened my first evening on Staten Island. I stopped at a gas station to get a drink of water, and before I could leave, two teen-aged boys working there had given me twenty dollars, one large pizza, two soda pops and a beer--and I didn't ask for anything but the water.

And what of the crime in the city?

"Don't believe that at all!" a wild-eyed Yugoslavian cab driver laughed. "I dare you to walk anywhere in Manhatten--yes, even Central Park--at any time of the day or night and see if anything bad happens to you."

I did just as he advised. And, as usual, the purveyors of fear were wrong. Other than a few passes from streetwalkers, absolutely nothing happened.

Sure, you must use common sense and caution in some places. But the horror stories about New York City crime are mostly exaggerations.

I felt safer in Manhatten at two in the morning than I ever felt in other metropolitan inner-city areas. Maybe it was the masses of people on the streets at every hour of the day.

I believe that America's big cities are very much alive and growing--and so are the people in them.

Steven

Posted by at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Atlantic City, N.J
May 28, 1983

Dear Folks,

I am sitting on a bench in a still sleepy Atlantic City, watching and listening to the restless ocean. The hazy sun is just peeping up from the Atlantic, and, except for a few hungry seagulls and a couple of joggers, this stretch of the boardwalk along the casinos is probably as deserted as it ever gets.

Last night I stayed in a rescue mission in a room with twenty-nine other transients--a sleepless night, with all the hacking and snoring and the drunks stumbling against my bed.

I had no intention of coming anywhere near Atlantic City. My plan was to go in a line from Washington to Baltimore, then to Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. Then, a week ago, I received a phone call from a free-lance writer who wanted to interview me.

She asked if I could meet her in "A.C." I said yes--mistakenly thinking that the old resort city was somewhere along the ocean close to New York City. Later, when I looked on a map, I saw it was 60 miles southeast of Philadelphia. I had a strong urge to call back and tell her to forget the interview. The idea that for the first time on the walk I'd be going backward instead of forward was most disturbing. However, my curiosity got the better of me, and so I left the "City of Brotherly Love" to go to New Jersey, the "Garden State."

Philadelphia can best be pictured as an "inverted donut." Surrounding the city is a light area of lush countryside and expensive suburbs which suddenly turns into a wide ring of dark ghettos of trash-filled streets, tens of thousands of unemployed poor, and probably a like number of abandoned buildings. In the center of the city, the light area returns again in the form of new office towers, green parks, sparkling water fountains, tree-lined boulevards, and well-preserved, stone-pillared libraries and museums.

But now I'm in Atlantic City, which looks like a sprawling junkyard of seedy motels amd bars, graced only by a string of pearls someone threw along its eastern edge--the Boardwalk with its casinos and trinket shops.

All the way across New Jersey, it was a rare moment when anyone said "Hello." I was puzzled and disappointed to be treated as if I were distrusted and disliked.

Several locals I talked with said there has been a recent large influx of unemployed and unskilled transients into south New Jersey looking for work in the booming "casino row" of Atlantic City. So, ironically, south New Jersey finds itself with more unemployment and crime than ever before.

"We who've lived here all our lives are scared anymore," said the owner of a bar halfway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. "It ain't like twenty years ago when people waved and stopped to talk. It's a rougher bunch now, we can't trust no one."

He needn't have told me. Many homes and businesses I passed were unkempt or abandoned and guarded by vicious attack dogs.

The biggest disappointment of my walk so far would have to be New Jersey. But time, like the waves of the ocean, has a tendency to alter a lot of things--opinions included.

Steven

Posted by at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)