Meandering around lower Manhattan, Ground Zero, Battery Park. Sensory overload. I feel that every time I visit New York City. The story here is, there are too many stories. My imagination cluttered, overcrowded, traffic-jammed, unable to focus on a narrative thread. Result: the eyes don’t react, don’t record, and I resort to tourism. And yet this city is so open to walking…
“The site was a palimpsest, as was all the city, written, erased, rewritten. There had been communities here before Columbus ever set sail, before Verrazano anchored his ships in the narrows, or the black Portuguese slave trader Esteban Gómez sailed up the Hudson; human beings had lived here, built homes, and quarreled with their neighbors long before the Dutch ever saw a business opportunity in the rich furs and timber of the island and its calm bay.”
Teju Cole, Open City
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