New York is the world’s greatest city

Friends,

Today is September 11, and I have spent most of the day yearning to be in New York. I suppose 25 years is long enough for some people to forget what the morning felt like. I do not mean the politics or the television coverage. I mean the people. People who got up, went to work, bought coffee served in one of those Greek themed cups that read WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU, kissed their children goodbye, and thought they would be home that evening. There is something about being in New York on this day that seems like the proper way to remember them. Not with speeches necessarily. Just by being there.

Mother and I have walked tremendous distances through New York. Over 100 miles on one trip, which is not a particularly sensible thing to do but has never stopped me before. We would leave in the morning and generally have some idea where we were going, which was rarely where we ended up. I like that about New York. You can be headed toward one thing and discover three others on the way. Mother is considerably better about this than she ought to be.

Of course, eventually I get hungry. There are few cities where I am willing to walk several extra miles because I have decided that a particular pizza is necessary. New York is one of them.

We have sat at John's, at Table 2, our table, and eaten pizza while looking at the names on the wall. I remember Mother sitting across from me and thinking that there was really nowhere else I would rather be. Then I probably started talking about another pizzeria. This is how my mind works.

Walking around New York has occasionally reminded me of something Augustine was trying to get at in The City of God. Not Babel. New York is not Babel. Babel was mankind trying to build something to make itself great. New York seems more like mankind simply trying to live together. Millions of people who would probably never choose one another as neighbors somehow become neighbors anyway. They speak different languages, eat different food, have different politics, and still stand in the same line for coffee. That strikes me as a rather remarkable achievement.

I remember walking through Chinatown with Mother and then, not very long afterward, being somewhere that looked as though it belonged to another country altogether. Then we would turn a corner and there was an old church. I like those churches and I will stop in them to sit and pray and consider the great cloud of witnesses who, at one point in time, shared that sacred space.

Maybe living together is what gives New Yorkers their profound humility and hospitality — or perhaps both are owed to that great tragedy we remember today. Augustine would probably have something to say about that, although I doubt he ever had to step around a delivery truck while making the argument.

I think about walking because I have always liked walking. I broke my ankle once in the French Quarter by catching my foot on a brick while apparently believing myself to be considerably more coordinated than I actually am. New York has presented similar hazards. One would think after that experience I might learn to look where I am going. I have not.

But the walking is the point. 125 miles sounds ridiculous until you remember how much there is to see. An old bakery. A synagogue. A firehouse. A stoop. A man carrying flowers. The view of Central Park from The Plaza. A man in Rucker Park playing basketball. Pizza. Always pizza.

You start to understand that the great monument of New York is not the Empire State Building. It is the sidewalk.

And today I keep thinking about those sidewalks on September 11, 2001.

People running on them. Firemen running in the opposite direction. People carrying strangers. People looking for someone they loved.

That is probably why I want to be there tonight.

Not to see the skyline. Not to check another restaurant off a list. I want to walk with Mother. I want to hear the city. I want to stand somewhere and remember that 25 years ago an ordinary day became anything but ordinary.

Paris might be cleaner. Bawcomville might have bigger pickup trucks. New Orleans has better parades. But I have never been anywhere that makes me want to keep walking quite like New York.

So tonight I wish I were there.

Mother, a long walk, an old building, a pizza, and another corner waiting to be turned.

May a bit of New York rest in all our hearts tonight.

Yours,
TulaneLSU