Today’s post is on: nostalgia, or, ‘we don’t live here anymore.’  Some of them try to capture what the city of New York, metaphysically, ideologically, hypothetically is, some simply seem to see it as their duty to preserve a clear record of New York as it existed from their distinct perspective (what New York is to a Brownstone kid, what New York is when viewed from Hoboken), but all of the writers are grappling with specific nostalgia-enducing sensory-based memories, a working definition of what New York was to a specific person in a specific circumstance at a specific point in time, or some broader sense of what the big city is and does.  E. B. White is one of these latter writers, who defines the three New Yorks as they exist for its three types of denizens: residents, commuters, and visionaries (satchel-and-a-dream types).  Unlike any of the other selected writers, rather than dwell on all the images and experiences and occassions of a particular view of New York, White focuses precisely on how New York allows the option of excluding oneself from these experiences and sights, such as residents who have never set foot near the Statue of Liberty.

Alfred Kazin is the precise opposite, with no pretensions of seeking a higher understanding of the city; he is merely reminiscing, unashamedly, about his Brownsville youth and his recollection of the city is not really a recollection of the city but of Brownsville, his Brownsville to be more precise.  He juxtaposes it to the new Brownsville housing project cutting across older Brownsville like a dropped brick across an anthill, and decides he preferred before the future came to Brownsville.

Edward Abbey also writes from a near-outsider viewpoint, watching Manhattan from the shores of Hoboken New Jersey like a physician monitoring a patient with a unique malady for any new and exciting developments.  We shall move past him for a moment to Joan Didion, but we’ll be back.  Didion recalls the New York of parties and young aimless people and is more an account of her personal circumstances than, say, a travelogue of little-known New York marvels, a tale of one girl’s tribulations and struggles and the people she knew and how it all went wrong.  In speaking of the “Hoboken perspective,” Abbey’s article also becomes a personal narrative account, but it also contains gems of New York beauty (or horror): “Once I saw a large dark ship, no visible running lights at all, pass between me and the clustered constellations of the city – a black form moving across a field of stars.”

Sarah Schulman’s “People and Their Streets, Places” should be mentioned in the same breath as “Goodbye to All That;” they have the same closely personal revelatory feel, and the same despondent treading-water ethic hanging vaguely about their protagonists.

The two Jackson pieces and Lefebvre’s contribution were optional and, regrettably, I lacked time to peruse them.

Michel Lefebvre, last in our list, differed sharply from the rest in that he was purely analytical, no sentiment at all. So analytical as to be nearly incomprehensible.

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