Ever since, New York has existed for me simultaneously as a map to be learned and a place to aspire too–a city of things and a city of signs, the place I actually am and the place I would like to be even when I am here. As a kid, I grasped that the skyline was a sign that could be, so to speak, relocated to New Jersey–a kind of abstract, receding Vision whose meaning would always be “out of reach,” not a concrete thing signifying “here you are.” Even when we are established here, New York still seems a place we aspire to. Its life is one thing–streets and hot dogs and brusqueness–and its symbols, the lights across the way, the beckoning skyline, are another. We go on being inspired even when we’re most exasperated.

Ever since, New York has existed for me simultaneously as a map to be learned and a place to aspire too–a city of things and a city of signs, the place I actually am and the place I would like to be even when I am here. As a kid, I grasped that the skyline was a sign that could be, so to speak, relocated to New Jersey–a kind of abstract, receding Vision whose meaning would always be “out of reach,” not a concrete thing signifying “here you are.” Even when we are established here, New York still seems a place we aspire to. Its life is one thing–streets and hot dogs and brusqueness–and its symbols, the lights across the way, the beckoning skyline, are another. We go on being inspired even when we’re most exasperated.

– Adam Gopnik –

Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York

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