ILLUSTRATIONS#4

TITLE
CONTENTS

ABSTRACT
EPIGRAPH
INTRODUCTION
METHOD
ILLUSTRATIONS

(1) Pleasures

(2) Opportunities

(7) Ambivalence
DISCUSSION
APPENDIX
REFERENCES

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ILLUSTRATIONS

(4) Stress

Do you miss the thrill,

the subways, the schlepping?

And is it second nature still

to watch where you are stepping?

-- David Frishberg (1981), "Do You Miss New

York?"

On a somewhat more negative note, several informants emphasized that -- while exciting and stimulating -- New York can also seem rather tense or even overwhelming. In short, the hectic pace, the pressing crowds of people, the insistent time pressure, the general hustle-and-bustle of activity, and the ubiquitous sense of urgency all combine to place the local citizen in a sort of suspended state of perpetual stress.

For some informants, this feeling of stress was rather subtle or almost subliminal and not altogether unpleasant. It manifested itself in a sort of vague disquietude in one's environment -- as in the sense of being inundated with stimuli or thrown into hectic situations where some celebrity like Milton Berle might pop up at any time(PHOTO 4A):

Seeing these famous comedians going about their business in New York reminds me of all the stimulus [sic] that a New Yorker is inundated with on an average day. All the celebrities that are a constant presence in New York exemplify the competition that exists for a New Yorker's attention. In the situation that this picture was taken, Milton Berle and Bea Arthur were among many comedians that I could have chosen for a photograph. The reason I chose them is because they were well-positioned in my mind as I am a big fan of the Golden Girls and find Milton Berle to be quite funny....

Photo: At Waldorf Astoria -- close-up of Milton Berle and another comedian. Background: other photographers and comedians.

For others, a feeling of unease seemed part and parcel of their everyday interior, exterior, or neighborhood surroundings. For example, one visitor from Asia found an almost ominous sense of foreboding in the dark corridor of his apartment building full of strangers behind closed doors (PHOTO 4B):

The corridor of my apartment. Old, dark, many doors of strangers, and long. After one year since I came here, this is my image [of] New York (not [of] U.S.).

Another saw the view from her bedroom window as a study in bleak drabness -- so bleak, apparently, that her photograph was nothing but a dark patch:

This is a picture taken directly through my bedroom window. I have to look up above the building in hopes to see the color of the sky. This is representative of New York City. The proximity of the buildings and the skyscrapers symbolize the City's density.

Still another commented somewhat restively on the fast pace of her neighborhood surroundings; she produced an almost bizarre photograph that she took at a rakish angle and that features traffic careening through a wide city street(PHOTO 4C):

My boyfriend lives on the upper East Side. I live there 1/2 the time. My apartment is on the West Side. NYC is where I live. I have adapted to my fast paced surroundings, convenience of food delivery, parking & driving limitations, confined space, shopping, fresh bagels, hard to find cheap fresh fruit ($1 per apple), crowds, Broadway shows, fine dining, a great view from my window, and the not so great view from my apartment, great music and harsh daily sounds, over-active lifestyle....

Others tied their stress even more directly to what we ordinarily think of as everyday consumption-related activities, such as the problem of coping with the concentrated living style of a New York apartment in which all of one's cherished possessions must somehow be crammed into a couple of rooms (PHOTO 4D):

To me, New York means "concentrated" living. New Yorkers' lives are concentrated in two ways -- physically & experientially. My apartment, shown in the photograph, is 800 square feet packed with all the material things my wife and I believe we need to function. The living room alone is filled with a desk for working & bill-paying, a bike for exercising, a sofa for lounging & TV-watching, books and magazines for reading, a laptop computer for portable labor, a china cabinet filled with unused wedding presents for dining in our imaginary dining room, and last, but certainly not least, a cat to be loved and coddled with no hope of reciprocation. My crowded apartment is representative of the New York style of living, where many, many experiences are crowded into concentrated time & space. New York means a lifetime of experiences in just a few short years. Boy am I beat.

Time to move South!

On a similar theme, carried outdoors, another informant expressed her mingled state of exhilaration and exhaustion via a simile based on her experiences in slogging through flea markets while searching for their always elusive hidden treasures (PHOTO 4E):

I photographed the entrance to the Chelsea Flea Market, an image I chose as a metaphor for my experience of New York. For me, New York -- like the flea market -- represents a condition of exhilarating and exhausting stimulation. There is no possible way I can see/experience everything, but I have to seek out as much of it as I can, because I know that there is magic hidden treasure out there. I also know that I'm going to have to slog through a lot of junk, and I might still come away empty-handed, or with a false promise. I deliberately photographed the entrance to the market because I wanted to include the sign that reads "Admission, $1." My perception of New York is that I'm going to have to pay (financially, emotionally, psychologically, opportunity-wise) -- even just to look.

Finally, a theme that recurred frequently manifested itself as the major preoccupation of at least three informants who responded to the crowded New York subways with degrees of stress-induced coping that ranged from resigned philosophical detachment concerning their "intimate anonymity and self-sufficient efficiency" to reluctant complicity in wanting to tell others "to get a move on it" to overt abhorrence at the "wave of people" who make it "almost impossible to walk in the opposite direction":

Having moved back to New York after spending five [years] in Los Angeles, several things have struck me over these past thirteen months as being distinctly "New York" in nature. My photograph of a mere subway station is representative of these distinct features: intimate anonymity and self-sufficient efficiency. I think back to the faces of strangers I have seen on the subway, the distinguishing features they possessed and the attitudes they sported. Without uttering a word I am able to have an immediate and basic understanding of these people. I may have seen them with members of their family, with partners or among friends, which served to further define these individuals. Certainly these "intimately anonymous" encounters occur in settings other than the subway, such as on the street, from apartment to apartment, in the market and so forth, but it is in the subway that observation is the primary activity. Further, virtually all classes, races, sexes and ages ride the subway together, which heightens the importance of this observation.

Every individual in New York to me seems an entrepreneur, from those who sleep on the street, to those who navigate through the hierarchies of the world's most powerful financial institutions. In many ways, the city empowers people and supports this self-sufficient efficiency, primarily through its allocation of freedom and independence. Everyone can be anyone in New York. The subway is representative of this freedom, both literally and symbolically. One subway token can take a person from one end of the earth to the other, quite simply. From Wall Street to the outer reaches of every borough, the subway supports the desires of members in a society, who wish to transport themselves from one place to another and even those who find their sole business on board.

In New York, a city which may appear chaotic and disorganized on the surface (and in fact may well be in terms of bureaucracy), the individuals who comprise the fabric of this metropolis function according to systems each has constructed for him/herself. The subway represents this infrastructure. Of course, the New York subway holds a further fascination for me, as I have come from a city which, no matter how much money is spent, the number of politicians who have intervened, or new plans laid, the Los Angeles subway just can't get itself out of the station, or find any passengers.

This rush hour scene at the World Trade Center is descriptive of the New York experience for me. It is a scene I see, and am part of, every weekday. It is symbolic of what New York means to me because I see New York as a very active & busy place, where people are eager to seize opportunities. Also, I see New York as clusters of people hurrying on their ways to whatever (work, school, leisure, etc.) -- there is a never ending array of things to do and see and learn, such that there is not enough time in the day to experience everything we want to. When I first got to New York, I used to be very annoyed at how this mad rush of people always seemingly got me caught in a wave, preventing me to look around and absorb my new surroundings. Nowadays, however, I have to stop myself from rushing past the slow people in front of me and telling them that the way to experience New York is to get a move on it.

New York is a fantastic city that just happens to be occupied by too many millions. I grew up in Brooklyn, and really started to appreciate the crowds only after college, when I moved into my midtown apartment. Since avoiding crowds is the most critical element to maintaining daily sanity, I recognize that the flexible schedule inherent in my job [was] perhaps its most attractive feature.

When I began going to Columbia, I found that my flexibility diminished. I often need to get from Columbia to midtown during the after-work rush and, therefore, am thrust into the single most crowded place in the city, the Times Square subway station. In particular, there is a wave of people who rush from the Grand Central Shuttle to the 7th Avenue train, and at certain times, it is almost impossible to walk in the opposite direction.

As a testimony to what must be avoided in New York, I have taken a picture of the first wave of this crowd.

Perhaps emblematically, only the first of the photographs accompanying these three subway-related vignettes came out clearly (PHOTO 4F), largely because it was taken outdoors and featured a subway entrance gleaming in the sum. The other two, shot in the bowels of underground train stations, were simply too dark and underexposed to prove useful here.