Manhattan: Dazzle, drive and diversity

Quite unlike Le Corbusier when he first arrived in New York City in 1935 by a streamliner and quipped tongue-in-cheek to reporters, “Skyscrapers not big enough” — I’m very much mesmerised by them! And I chugged into the world’s most fast-paced city that is in a perennial state of high pulsation — through a sedate ride in a metro train from Old Greenwich.

The palatial Grand Central Station, designed like a Renaissance edifice, epitomises the grandeur of the early 20th-century neo-classic revival in New York. But its beauty is married to clockwork functionality, with tracks on multiple levels and entries and exits too in multiple directions. Emerging from the station in the sunlit Madison Avenue, I try to get my bearings of the city that I last visited some years ago.

Looking for familiar landmarks, I’m able to spot none other than the quintessential skyscraper of Big Apple — Chrysler Building with its signature-top Art Deco tower, that draws attention amid the maze of surrounding buildings and streets. The 1960s-built MetLife Building (earlier Pan Am Building) also pops up on the skyline prominently. Another comment by Corbusier about New York, that it was the “Grand Canyon of concrete and steel” seems to ring true.

A new big building on Park Avenue is the new JP Morgan Chase office, now rebuilt in copper and gold metal-clad steel frames, with tinted reflecting glass. Designed by the acclaimed architect Norman Foster, it stands out for its receding setbacks, rising vertically upwards to make it look like a giant glass ziggurat.

As I saunter along the wide pavements — stopping every few minutes for traffic intersections — the great thing about this city is that in spite of cheek-by-jowl towers, it has very wide pedestrian sidewalks. Clearly, the pedestrian is king! And it’s not one person walking — but hordes and hordes of varied skin colours, accents, languages, and attire commingling — moving together as rivers of humanity.

There are the swanky designer-clothed men and women in their luxury-brand dark glasses, and their pet dogs — along with the large number of goggle-eyed tourists, both from abroad and from within America, on their first visit to Big Apple. There is a large presence of construction workers with their tool kits climbing up scaffoldings in New York.

I heard a Punjabi accent and saw a swarthy Sikh worker giving instructions all around…I said well-done Sardar jee! New York is forever in construction mode. Every third block will have scaffoldings, beneath which you walk and life moves on smoothly. Trucks laden with construction material and tools are parked nearby.

Since most of the skyscrapers were built decades ago and builders constantly buy, sell, and redevelop; the construction frenzy is unabated. If affluence walks arm in arm with the not-so-privileged, the sight of street vendors and food trucks will convince you that it’s a level playing ground when thirst or hunger strike.

The fruit juice trucks are the most colourful and fanciful, that offer smoothies, milkshakes, and juices of so many varieties and combinations that you are confused — and at such utterly low prices. As I choose one made out of strawberry, pineapple, blackberry, and a banana — I get talking to the middle-aged vendor who speaks with an oriental accent. He is from Egypt and runs the business for the truck owner. When I tell him that I'm from India and can understand a bit of Urdu, he is very happy. “Insha Allah we meet again!”

Slowly walking and observing, I reach my destination for the day — the Times Square — called the ‘living room of the world’. It’s as usual dazzling with catchy billboards, street entertainers, and characters dressed up as Caesar, Statue of Liberty, or as cowboys. It’s a fun place but hard to find a place to sit on. The only place is a multi-tiered bench which is always full.

Besides the razzmatazz of the advertising boards, I can also hear an evangelic voice trying to save everyone’s soul only if we submitted to Jesus! I ask the yellow cab driver on my way back to Grand Central what he thought of [presumably a candidate named] Mamdani as the Mayoral candidate? “Oh! He is right, right… a good man” adding that he had, in fact, already voted for him. Then I ask him about his land of origin? It’s Bangladesh.

As I pay up and alight, I tell him that I’m from India and the two nations have always had very good relationship in the past, and only now things were getting a bit sour.

“Don’t worry Yunus is a good man”.

I will like to believe that.