It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

Who could forget that shining moment which changed my outlook on life forever? I most certainly can’t. It was twenty years ago today, I first visited NYC. It was twenty years ago today that sealed my fate. A trip that made me realize THIS was the place where I was going to live. Be it a month, a year, or forever; I would one day be able to say, “I lived there”.

It was the annual 9th grade trip with my choir group. Our teacher, Mr. Lumpkin had a way of taking us places which on the surface, made sense. But in practice, proved to be excursions that let us blow off a lot of teen angst. Deep down, his goal was absolute. He wanted to spread music to the masses. He wanted to let us know that it was possible to sing anywhere and have fun in the process. I remember the time he took our class to his church. We stopped in and sang a few songs with Mr. Lumpkin on the organ. The rest of the afternoon was spent eating at McDonald's. You see, he knew how to plan a trip around hyperactive junior high school girls, and a trip into the city proved to be no different. I was so excited I could hardly sleep the night prior and the trip there was uneventful. Once we arrived, however, it proved to be the most magical thing possible for someone like me, who didn’t have the normal opportunities that someone my age had.

We gathered together near the fountain at Lincoln Center, sang a few songs, and we were on our way. Our tour bus guide was a guy named Scott, whom I later found out, was an extra in one of my most favorite movies, Desperately Seeking Susan. You can see him, in the dance club scene when Madonna walks away from the jukebox. Scott’s leaning against the wall, wearing sunglasses. I thought I had died and gone to heaven with this information. After touring throughout the city on the bus with Scott pointing out landmarks, and us with our cameras to the glass, we all went up the Empire State Building, browsed through The Wiz (now a Wendy’s), and had lunch at the McDonald's on 5th Ave and 33rd street. Funny enough, the night I arrived in June of 1997 to live here, the only place open that I could get any dinner was that very same McDonald's, layout unchanged.

Now here’s the major memory I have of that day. With my spending money, I bought a map of Manhattan. I remember the perplexed looks on some of my classmate’s faces when they saw my purchase. But, I knew. I knew what my future would have in store for me. I knew. Once home, I studied that map, but it didn’t help. I hadn’t visited enough to really learn what I needed to know. I think it was just my excitement at my new awakening, combined with a little bit of wanting to bring a tangible piece of the city back home to me all for myself. It’s funny, because today, I hardly know where things are, and rarely if ever travel above 40th street. I’m the one who whips out her little business card sized map of lower Manhattan in order to get my bearings. In a city where there are two West 12th streets, sometimes you have no choice but to!

This article below really resonated with me the first time I read it. Looking back on that day – May 14, 1987 - I see a bit of myself in the visitor the author mentions. I wonder if I gave off any signs or signals that showed I was different from all the rest? I would like to think that I did, but I can’t remember. I do recall not being phased at the things that came my way, and I didn’t point at people as my classmates did. I was pretty copacetic about life in the city and it's idiosyncrasies. Could that be it? Again, I don’t know.

So, I wish myself a happy 20th anniversary (I feel old just saying that!). I wonder - how many more?

TIMES SQUARE AT 100; Once I Was You
By MARK ALLEN
Published: June 13, 2004

MORE and more these days, I've been venturing toward the Times Square area, even if it's a little out of my way. I used to avoid the ''new'' Times Square because that was what real New Yorkers did, but lately I've been drawn to its colorful, touristy energy. I like navigating among its bombastic mobs; they make me feel as if I'm both being swallowed up by the crowd and am also the last man on earth.

These days, Times Square possesses some of the most pure and unaffected energy anywhere in Manhattan. Within its glut of intersections lie the ghosts of countless individual, split-second moments, the moments of people's first impressions of New York, the first and final meeting between an individuals expectations and the real thing.

But the real reason I've been gravitating here is because every once in a while, I'll spy someone in the crowd of tourists who catches my eye, probably because I am reminded of myself on that slapstick day some 10 years ago when I first arrived here.

They may be trying slyly to separate from a tour group, or perhaps they simply seem a bit too smart for their surroundings. They're easily spotted because whether or not they're conscious of it, they're the ones who secretly want to own the city, and this desire makes them shine very brightly.

I can usually spot the traits that differentiate the mere visitor from those rare individuals who have secretly planned on moving here their entire lives and are just testing the waters this time around.

Visitors who are indeed just visiting gawk in celebratory delight at the tourist attractions -- the neon, the zipper, the waxy giants. Visitors who have big plans for actually living here study the background extras behind those tourist attractions, the New Yorkers themselves.

I know this because I showed these peculiar characteristics when I emerged out of a hissing subway station on 42nd Street and Broadway on that first day 10 years ago. I tried to pretend I was gawking at all the objects and symbols that have made Times Square so legendary, but instinctively my eyes kept snapping back down to the throngs of people zooming back and forth in the foreground.
There were no outstretched arms or welcoming smiles, just black umbrellas, crisp hairstyles and leather briefcases whizzing by mere inches past my nose. These were my new neighbors, all eight million of them, and they seemed unfazed by Times Square's grand, galactic corridors.

It wasn't until out of nowhere, one of them approached me and asked if I needed help, that I realized I was holding an unfolded map in one outstretched hand. I remember the amazement I felt that a real New Yorker was actually speaking to me. I never saw him again, but I'll never forget that smiling face in the center of Times Square, framed by the hundreds of whizzing pedestrians all around us. That was the first human interaction I had in New York.

When I pass through Times Square these days, and I spot someone, map unfurled, perhaps studying the crowd a bit too much, I always offer to help. And though they're soon on their way again, I always think that someday they'll be back for good.