The Beautiful, Yet Blinding Lights of NYC
Nayeon Park is a senior at Hunter College High School who loves collecting postcards, listening to talk show podcasts, and winning at claw machines.
“Six feet apart for me means miles away from being able to go to school, discover new Pan Asian cuisine, and stand on line for the best tacos de pollos on the block.”
By Nayeon Park
Best said by Gerard Kenny, New York, New York, so good they named it twice. So good, but I can describe it two ways. NYC is bustling, yet it makes you feel so alone sometimes. NYC is beautiful, yet hides so much filth and danger. NYC is exhilarating yet so exhausting. These dichotomies coexist to make NYC the amazing, enticing city it is. To an outsider, who romanticizes New York City as a city of dreams and lavish, luxury condos with olives dipped in martinis in the summertime, I would simply giggle. If you are not a rich business tycoon, blinded by the city lights and the adult playground we call Hudson Yards, NYC is far different. Living here feels like you are burning the candle at both ends; weaving through the mass of black, rigid businesses suits at the crack of dawn to catch your train to, when the day ends, being greeted by the dissonant symphony of taxi cars and construction until you finally reach home from two boroughs away late at night. Yet New York City remains a special place in the American illustration -- I believe this is because there is never a dull moment in my beautiful city.
There is a reason NYC attracted my immigrant parents to settle out of our cozy Illinois home in the cornfields to the very antithesis of it. When it comes to diversity, NYC exemplifies it; we are a minority majority -- yet another magnificent oxymoron. I come from Queens, where I grew up with the comfort of my mother tongue, Korean, and the familiar taste of perilla leaves and jjajangmyeon. I come from the borough with the best dimsum and hot pot -- the 7 Train as our loyal, and only, way of transport. I hear the deep roars of airplanes coming out of their caves: the LaGuardia and JFK airports. On weekdays, I experience Manhattan, the popular girl of the five boroughs. As if I were straight from Gossip Girls, I travel to my high school in the Upper East Side -- without the glam and wealth, of course. My black Mastercard is in the form of a public school ID that allows me to enter one of the most iconic museums in the world for free -- The MET. After casually visiting the Monet exhibit, I go down the concrete stairs to catch the next Q train to Flatbush to meet my dad at his store in Brooklyn. Our family owns a beauty supply store in Flatbush where I get to live among the best Jamaican street food, $1 lip gloss, and critically acclaimed jerk chicken. In a city where having a driver’s license at 17 is unheard of, where a train stop away introduces you to an entirely different culture and community, and where rats eating next to a train is normal, NYC is unmatched if you are able to survive it.
As of now, due to the recent pandemic, things have changed. Six feet apart for me means miles away from being able to go to school, discover new Pan Asian cuisine, and stand on line for the best tacos de pollos on the block. There are over a million NYC high school students as of now -- the future of our city. We have grown up without the luxury of settling. Although we are still young in our world, most of us have learned how to accept everyone regardless of ethnicity, background, or socioeconomic status. As our population grows and our rent grows even higher, I believe our generation will be the ones to further homogenize other aspects of NYC; Such aspects that would allow everyone to treat NYC as their own playground, yet maintain the intimate, homely nature of each borough. It would be naive to demand economic equality for all in just a few years, but compassion can go a long way. Among the dozens of dichotomies NYC has, I think a new one can replace old ones. Although we are labeled as rude and no-nonsense, we should work towards kindness and unity so that there would be less people on the streets who can not fall asleep with the blinding city lights right above them or so that the bustling city does not make everyone feel so alone sometimes. New York City, a city of dichotomies and oxymorons, is a place I would never want to leave.