For many, when we think about New York City, we think about the peak of modernity, the place where innovation happens, and new things are created. We think about the idea of the modern city life, of what it means to be a modern person, and we think about the “city that never sleeps.” There is so much more, though. There are normal, every day people heading to their 9-5 on the subway. There’s the business executive walking on the same sidewalk as the janitor in his building. There are traces of history all across the city, from all eras. There is no one definition of a New Yorker, everyone in the city lives such different lives, but each of these lives are so interconnected that one could not exist without the other.
Something that had astounded me about New York was the way that modern buildings and architecture blended in with historical buildings. I felt like it was a perfect metaphor for the city, seeing old, ornate buildings mingling with the sleek, new ones. But it did make me wonder, how much of New York had been leveled in order to create this sense of modernity?
Don’t get me wrong, people from all over the world come to see the historical sites of New York. After all, New York is such an integral part of American history, not only for immigrants, but even going far back as the revolution. There’s so much history to be learned in New York. For me, though, I’m very interested in the histories of different peoples, and so looking around at these glittering new buildi
ngs built over old ones that people felt weren’t important enough, I wonder a lot about the people who once lived there.
I had once seen a video talking about how Lincoln Center now stands where a majority Black and Latino neighborhood once was. Many times, when I would walk to get coffee from Starbucks on Broadway, I found myself thinking about the people who must have lived in that neighborhood. Where did they go? What happened to their families? How did they succeed or fail after being removed? Where are their descendants now?
But, of the historical buildings that do still exist, I wish their walls could talk, because I’d ask them about the people who made the city what it is.