NYC Imports: Artisans and Applied Mathematicians?

When I read accounts of the heaving masses of early New York, I’m sometimes surprised the island didn’t just give up and sink back down into the Atlantic Ocean. The steady stream of people who flock to the city for its opportunities brings a constant renewal of culture, intellect, and skill. The immigrant experience that is more of a history in rural and suburban parts of the country –“when your great-grandfather came over from Ireland with $10 in his pocket…” –is a daily reality in New York. The city’s ability to accept immigrants and incorporate their unique offerings revitalizes the city and fosters innovations that keep New York a city of global importance.  Some even go so far as to say that these newcomers represent the true New York.

NYC could not function without its trade culture. On the way to class today, I drank a cup of coffee made with beans imported from Columbia. In a home in colonial New York, tea was made with leaves imported from India. Like any city, New York imports that which it cannot efficiently produce itself (which at this point, is nearly everything). The act of importing has for several centuries fostered a vibrant diffusion in the ports of the city. The city’s long history of immigration has facilitated a tradition of the importing of human capital.

Considering New York in the physical sense brings to mind famous buildings, the waterfront, Central Park. The subway system runs beneath the surface of lower Manhattan, shaking the foundations of less-than-perfectly constructed apartment buildings. As fits any destination landmark, it has a gift shop. The MTA Transit Museum gift shop sells any conceivable souvenir item (yes, even socks) with subway letters plastered all over it. Beyond the fact that the system stuffs New Yorkers and tourists alike into a tiny car like sardines in a can, the very construction of the system was quintessentially New York. Drawing upon the masses of immigrant labor, the team behind the construction of the subway system benefitted from the skills of Italian artisans. Much of New York’s success can be attributed to immigrant contributions. 

This constant import of new skill sets has facilitated a long history of reinvention. Last night at dinner, President Sexton talked about another import-related success story—The Courant Institute. Globally renowned for its achievements in applied mathematics, the Institute became exceedingly strong at a time when NYU wasn’t the top-ranking university it is today. The namesake of the school, Richard Courant, was a German Jew who was forced to leave his homeland.  Other German Jews who had to leave Germany in the years leading up to WWII were brought onboard, and before long the University was in possession of a world-class mathematics faculty. In a fittingly New York fashion, NYU can attribute this success to the input of newcomers. 

A crowded, annoying, amazing and “unspeakable show and lesson”

To me, New York seems only fittingly documented by a hodgepodge of blog posts constantly updating and offering varied perspectives. This city is all about the teeming, diverse, and at times conflicting crowd that rushes down its bustling streets.  Walt Whitman’s Broadway describes these “hurrying human tides” in the context of one of its busiest walkways.

Being a New Yorker, I consider myself far busier and hurried than any human in any other city on the planet, and accordingly avoid Broadway like the plague. Rife with tourists, ‘authentic’ cashmere scarves, and Rolexes for only $10, Broadway presents an altogether inefficient means of foot transportation. And for us New Yorkers, efficiency is paramount.  I was prompted to revisit that abominable mass when I read Whitman’s characterization of Broadway as an “unspeakable show and lesson.” Despite myself, I agree with the sentiment. While sometimes walking down Broadway feels like trudging through a sea of human roadblocks, this trying experience offers both a show and a lesson.

It’s nearly impossible to walk a block on Broadway without visual and audio confirmation of the city’s incredible diversity. I’m lucky to live in a city where I can encounter several languages and multiple ethnicities on my 5-minute walk to class. Despite the different demographic distinctions I can employ to break down this crowd into neat chunks of a pie chart, the crowd as a whole offers an enticing array of opportunity. People to meet, things to learn, weird foods to try.

In this city of “myriad long-drawn lines and groups!” no distinctions can undermine the potential inherent in the chaotic masses that seem to pour incessantly out of the subways and storefronts to clog up the Broadway sidewalk. Even if a member of this crowd has only been in New York for an hour, they hold the latent prospect for one of the endless chance interactions through which this city teaches me every day- and what’s more New York than that?

City Streets and Sidewalks

My urban planning courses instilled in me that the only way to develop an understanding of neighborhoods is to walk them. Early in my collegiate career, I ran off the treadmill and took to the city streets. Running in New York can be trying, what with the looming threat of bicycle messengers and taxicabs, but remains a valuable educational experience. One Sunday last spring, I was attempting to study in my dorm room and was overcome by the need to tear myself away from my textbooks and get outside. I laced up my sneakers and left the door. I ran west through Chinatown and TriBeCa, up the West Side Highway to the mid-50s, turned around and followed the waterfront all the way down to Battery Park, around the bend, and back up the east side and then over to Central Park (after which I was spent and admittedly took the subway home).

As I ran along the New York streets, I arrived at the idea that this system of pavement forces residents and visitors alike to mingle. I ran through over a dozen distinct neighborhoods, but none offered a homogenous crowd walking down its streets. The teeming population of the city doesn’t allow for rigid boundaries between neighborhoods. While infrastructure offers organization of the island, commerce and culture depend upon the permeability of its boundaries. There is a constant flux of arrivals and departures from the city, be they by land, sea, or air. Infrastructure – mass transit, the streets themselves—squashes inhabitants from a multitude of social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds into a cramped subway car and forces their awareness of each other. Not only do New Yorkers depend on the city’s infrastructure for the services it provides, but it also plays a role in the evolution of the city’s diverse yet interconnected culture. 

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