We're Fine

Dear Non-New York City Resident:

We’re fine. Stop asking how things are in the City. Our resilience is far stronger than the typical American. If it weren’t, this country would have floundered long, long ago. While I recognize that the failed bombing in Times Square may have shaken a few, why would that change how we live each day after? As only the BBC seems to point out, “The Show Must Go On.”

I wildly disagree with the first woman quoted in the BBC article who was afraid to leave her apartment and is avoiding Times Square. How childish and ignorant. To be so afraid as to not leave your apartment is a bit extreme. Maybe she’s willing to fast and stall the micro-economy that revolves around her. If that’s the case, leave the City and enjoy the suburbs. Buy a nice little SUV and drive to work each day, alone, along with the rest of the gas-guzzling greedy whores that clog our highways, pollute our earth, and take what this city is and does for granted.

If New Yorkers were too afraid to leave their apartments, the country would be paralyzed, as it was shortly after 9/11. Granted, that was a far different situation (though isn’t it funny: We know the name of the man who took down the Twin Towers but haven’t caught him in 9 years; and here, in only two days, we’ve arrested three people—two of them in Pakistan). Perhaps I’m being a bit extreme. Or am I?

We make a choice to live in this bustling concrete wonder, just like my friends in San Francisco choose to live in a city that could crumble into the Pacific at any time. And let’s not forget the Big Easy: that sultry southern spotlight below sea level that is again being threatened because of human ineptitude. It is seemingly more and more the American way. Stay selfishly safe, clean, and green, but feel free to fuck everything else around you up. And as long as you check in and ask how everything is, it’ll be just fine. Thing is, it really doesn’t work that way when you’re stacked atop each other.

Frankly, I’m more concerned about rising sea levels and drastic changes in weather affecting New York. (I’m not sure what I’d do if the subway tunnels turned into rivers!) We long ago destroyed our first line of defense, just like the oil companies did in Louisiana: wetlands. Long Island and its thousands of miles of impermeable surfaces and energy hungry mansions obliterated nature’s wall. So really, I guess I’m happy to live where I live in the city. Though it’s in the Harlem valley, at least I’ve got mighty heighty Morningside to the west. Ha!

If we spent each day worrying sick about when the next attack would happen, the city would be silenced.

My god how boring that would be.

All the best,
Jeffrey