Walking around Modern Day NYC
There was a gloom and doom letter to the editor of the Valley News saying people are afraid to walk around NYC these days. I had to laugh out loud after just walking around on the crowded streets of NYC with people from all over the world. I sent this in as a response:
A recent letter lamented about being afraid to walk around New York City these days. I have to ask “Have you visited NYC lately?” Modern day NYC is a far cry from the city depicted in 1970s films like “The Warriors”.
I know because I was just there with my family for Columbus Day weekend. We were aware of being in a major city but we weren’t afraid as we walked all over. We walked around Times Square, we walked back to the hotel after a show on Broadway, we walked through Central Park and all round Mid-Town.
We took the subway to Brooklyn to tour a college. We walked on the Brooklyn Bridge and then over to the 911 Memorial. We walked from Downtown through SOHO, Greenwich Village, Chelsea and then on to the Highline where we enjoyed the view of a booming economy creating so many new and interesting high rise buildings with our fellow Americans of all backgrounds and visitors from all over the world.
We walked to dinner in Hell’s Kitchen and mixed in with costumed fans having fun coming back from Comic Con at the Convention Center. All over New York we saw people of all shapes, sizes and colors enjoying the city and enjoying life.
Sure we saw some panhandlers, some bums, a couple of mentally disturbed people including one guy who sat down in the middle of a street taunting taxi cabs to run him over but afraid to walk around NYC? I don’t think so.
See all of the New York City NYC photographs in the new collection at: http://edward-fielding.pixels.com/art/nyc