Writing New York

Writing New York (1998), an anthology of literary works compiled and edited by American writer Phillip Lopate, brings together a collection of writing that celebrates that most remarkable and magical of all American cities: New York. The works in this volume span more than 200 years of history and include contributions from luminaries in the fields of literature, politics, activism, architecture, and naturalism. The result is an all-encompassing look at The Big Apple and what makes it the quintessential, enduring, and world-class metropolis that it is.

In the introduction, Lopate discusses the importance of the role New York City has played in history, in culture, and in the hearts and minds of millions of people. It inspires a level of exceptional writing that perhaps no other city on Earth does. And there is good reason for that. Lopate quotes city planning official Robert Moses, who once commented, "New York is just too big, too complex to be served by any one writer." While acknowledging the truth in this statement that there is a virtually unlimited supply of literary voices that each describes their own New York experience, Lopate also asserts that there is such as "New York writing," which is sort of a genre in and of itself. "It flows from the rhythm and mode of being that this singular place imposes on everyone who lives in it or even visits it at length."

It is this central idea, this concept that New York imbues a certain sense of mood and emotion and place in the writing it inspires, that takes shape in the wildly diverse array of writing that follows. Yet, for all its diversity and for all its assorted voices, common themes run throughout this collection. Many of the contributors comment on the seemingly contradictory nature of the City: glamor and squalor live side by side; the City's buildings, manmade marvels, often dwarf or outright eradicate the natural beauty the place offers; the City's collective fixation on growth, consumerism, money, and success, and how these factors both drive and stifle it; the media empires centered there, which create a concentration of resident celebrities rivaled only by Hollywood; and conversely, the anonymity that comes with living in one of the largest cities in the world.



These aren't the only threads uniting the varying perspectives on display in this volume. Others include New York City's often-uneasy relationship with the rest of the United States: its accommodation—sometimes munificent, sometimes begrudging—of immigrants, minorities, and people living on society's margins; its huge swath of working-class folks, who share a common vernacular and a common struggle; its symbolism for many as the epitome of the shining city on the hill. The City inspires a sense of headiness in visitors, newcomers, and longtime residents, which can easily lead to another facet of the City—ironic considering its size—the loneliness and alienation it engenders.

The contributors delve into these themes and more as they set out to capture just a little of the alchemy of New York City. They include Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, James Fennimore Cooper, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, Henry James, O. Henry, Sara Teasdale, Djuna Barnes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Willa Cather, Marianne Moore, Helen Keller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Henry Miller, Zora Neale Hurston, Allen Ginsberg, and Oscar Hijuelos. Some pieces appear in their entirety, others in abridged form. Lopate offers a brief introduction to each work, adding context and brief biographical information on the authors.

Writing New York includes contributions both expected and not. For instance, Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," Hart Crane's poem "To Brooklyn Bridge," and Ralph Ellison's essay "New York, 1936" are among some of the most seminal writings about the City. However, there are less frequently published pieces here as well, equally incisive in their plumbing of New York's eternal mysteries and timeless appeal. Fanny Fern's newspaper column "Tyrants of Shop" examines the injustices young women faced in the 19th-century New York workplace. Bernard Malamud's short story "The Cost of Living" tells of an elderly New York City couple forced out of their longtime grocery business. In an essay from Approaching Eye Level, Vivian Gornick dissects the peculiar nature of New York's loneliness.



In the end, Writing New York is a tribute to the City's rich literary heritage and its exalted place in the creative imagination. Lopate lets his contributors speak for themselves. As a result, the collection reveals not only the thoughts of the individual authors, but of the character of the City itself: honest, opinionated, boisterous, sacred, profane—but, always, uniquely its own.