I'm sitting in the basement of a Victorian gothic castle, once a Greenwich Village courthouse, now the Jefferson Market Library. Before that, I found Washington Square Park. The history I learned about the founding of our country never mentioned New York as often as its influence is found here. The names of the people who gave us America are embedded here, in a way that my Midwestern geography, familiar with landowners and governors and post-Civil War heros and politicians did not prepare me for. I expected tributes to robber barons, Rockefellers and Astors and Carnegies and the legends of a city that grew up in the 30s, when nobody else had anything. And they're here, but Jefferson, Washington, Lafayette, Hamilton, Franklin, those are the names on the streets and the buildings and the parks and the monuments.
Greenwich Village has something I haven't seen much in the city, even in greenspace: flowers. I've seen florists and produce markets and the occasional hanging basket, but the plants here grow out of the ground sometimes. It feels like a different city. I've heard that "city of neigubourhoods," phrase used to describe other cities, but it actually means something here. When you come up from the subway, you can tell there's a difference, even if you don't know where you are. I frequently don't know where I am.
It matters more where you're going.
No comments:
Post a Comment