The towers of Manhattan seem extraordinarily high and narrow. I wondered how they stood stably. Surely the engineers have made their calculations with ample margins. Then I thought back to New York’s long history: the skyscrapers showed the city’s rapid growth since Dutch colonists founded a trading post on Manhattan around 1624.
More than 20.1 million people live in New York, making it the most populous city in the United States. Its residents speak as many as 800 languages. (I felt as if I heard many of those languages—and various accents—throughout my visit.) New York is a premier global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics and science, as well as design and fashion. It hosts the two largest stock exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, and it is home to the highest number of billionaires and millionaires of any city.
The city truly never sleeps. The traffic is heavy, the sidewalks are crowded. Sirens blare day and night. Older brick buildings with retail businesses on the ground floors mean that I could find all my needs within a few blocks of my hotel.
Whether old or new, the buildings will outlast the people inside them. Generations who once lived in these buildings are gone. The buildings aren’t haunted (although if they were, they would be so packed that there might not be room for the living). Instead, I feel that people flock to the city to chase their dreams, soar as high as they can, and then leave to make room for others. Take Grand Central Terminal (opened in 1913) as a metaphor. Thousands hurry through it each day, yet the building remains in place.
I’m even more itinerant than the residents. I’m a visitor, not even here for a week. The city stands. Everyone is a wayfarer.