TITLE
CONTENTS

ABSTRACT
EPIGRAPH
INTRODUCTION
METHOD
ILLUSTRATIONS
 (1) Pleasures
(2) Opportunities
(3) Loved Ones
(4) Stress
(5) Distress
(6) Respite
(7) Ambivalence
 DISCUSSION
APPENDIX
REFERENCES


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ILLUSTRATIONS







(1) Pleasures


The great big city's a wondrous toy,
Just made for a girl and boy.
We'll turn Manhattan into an Isle of Joy.
.
-- Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (1925),
"Manhattan"



Many informants regarded New York City as an exciting and stimulating source of culinary satisfactions and other hedonic experiences. These people tended to adopt an upbeat, optimistic, appreciative attitude toward the City and reported favorably on the pleasures of eating, dining, and recreating therein.

At the most straightforward level, some informants merely celebrated the availability of special treats or delicacies such as favorite foods or other earthly delights. For example, one man attached important meanings to the simple gratifications of a bagel with lox and coffee. This informant photographed the line of customers at the place where he buys his breakfast each morning -- apparently, the defining moment of his daily routine (PHOTO 1A):
New York means to me: an egg bagel with lox spread and tomato and a toasted almond coffee, light, with 1 sweet and low when I get to the front of the obscenely long but invariably fast-moving line (and I am on line, not in line) at H&H Bagels East, 81st & 2nd.
Others found more complex significance in local dining experiences -- as when an Asian woman voiced her delight over the diversity and multicultural flavor of a Chinese-Japanese restaurant (PHOTO 1B) and its neighboring Chinese-Spanish restaurant, found at 100th and Broadway:
Two restaurants at 100th street, Broadway, New York: Chinese & Japanese restaurant "Empire Szechuan -- Kyoto"; Chinese & Spanish restaurant "Flor de Mayo." How come the distinctive Chinese food can be served with the distinctive Japanese or the distinctive Spanish food? This may be possible only in New York, where different culture[s] meet and new combinations of different culture[s] are created. This is such an exciting phenomenon to the eyes of a foreign student from Japan, which has [a] very homogeneous society.

For one male informant, commenting on the excitement of shopping at a thriving culinary emporium like Zabar's on Broadway at 80th Street, a key source of pleasure lies in the feeling that you can almost literally get any food you want, whenever you want it. Indeed, his stereograph shows an almost overwhelming array of goodies that fill the three-dimensional space (PHOTO 1C):

To me, New York means "hustle-and-bustle": a lot of people, cars, and buildings, people packed into a very small space. New Yorkers have to learn to cope with crowds, being pushed around (and sometimes plowed) in the sea of humanity. Also, as the old Citibank commercial (and the Sinatra song as well) says, it's the city that never sleeps -- it's a place where one can get any type of food at all hours of the day. Accordingly, one can argue that New York means consumption.

No place for me is more emblematic of consumption, New York style, than Zabar's, on the Upper West Side. Here, as in the rest of the city, merchandise is crammed into every corner; it is piled into refrigerators, it hangs from above as one moves through the store -- it completely surrounds the shopper. There is a seemingly boundless variety of items: prepared foods, cheeses, cheesecloth, meats, meaty cleavers, candies, breads, bread trays, coffee, coffee makers, coffee filters, tea, tea strainers, tea pots, pasta, pasta machines, pasta tongs, salsa, salsa bowls, the list goes on and on (the store's shopping bags catalog the items available). There are signs all over the store trumpeting the virtues of various foods, imploring the shopper to buy, buy, buy (or at least try).

As the photograph (hopefully) shows, one first steps into the store to confront the cheese counter, piled high, literally brimming with dairy products from all over the globe. The consumer has to speak over a wall of cheese to the salesclerk/cheesecutter, who stands before another wall of cheese. Between them literally hangs a curtain of cheese from the ceiling.

Since my first visit to the Upper West Side over fourteen years ago, Zabar's has held near mythic status as a gastronomic mecca.... As with New York City, despite the crowds, we can't wait to return for another visit to Zabar's, because there's so much there.
Of course this recognition that there is "so much there" extends beyond the simple case of food. Thus, one woman responded to the profusion of menus from local take-out and free-delivery restaurants that come sliding under her door (viewed as a nuisance by some New Yorkers but obviously not by this informant) by interpreting these emblems as symbolic for the diverse enticements the City has to offer (PHOTO 1D):
New York, to me, means a place where you can get anything, any time, as exemplified by the plethora of takeout menus pictured. This quality of course extends beyond food -- you can get witchcraft supplies, spy equipment, incredibly expensive shoes, crack, World Series games, a huge range of live music -- anything you can think of, you can find it in New York.