Coast to Coast Read Free

nearby nodded their heads in proud and wondering agreement.
    All the same, it is sometimes difficult to keep one’s social conscience in order among the discrepancies of Manhattan; the gulf between rich and poor is so particularly poignant in this capital of opportunity. There is fun and vigour and stimulation in New York’s symphony of capitalism—the blazing neon lights, the huge bright office blocks, the fine stores and friendly shop assistants; and yet there is something distasteful about a pleasure-drome so firmly based upon personal advantage. Everywhere there are nagging signs that the life of the place is inspired by a self-interest not scrupulously enlightened. “Learn to take care of others,” says a poster urging women to become nurses, “and you will know how to take care of yourself.” “The life you save may be your own‚” says a road safety advertisement. “Let us know if you can’t keep this reservation‚” you are told on the railway ticket; “it may be required by a friend or a business associate of yours.” Faced with such constant reminders, the foreign visitor begins to doubt the altruism even of his benefactors. Is the party really to give him pleasure, or is the host to gain some obscure credit from it? The surprise present is very welcome, but what does its giver expect in return? Soon he is tempted to believe that any perversion of will or mind, any ideological wandering, any crankiness, any jingoism is preferable to so constant an obsession with the advancement of self.
    But there, Manhattan is a haven for the ambitious, and you must not expect its bustling rivalries to be too saintly. Indeed, you may as well admit that the whole place is built on greed, in one degree or another; even the city churches, grotesquely Gothic or Anglican beyond belief, have their thrusting social aspirations. What is wonderful is that so much that is good and beautiful has sprung from such second-rate motives. There are palaces of great pictures in New York, and millions go each year to see them. Each week a whole page of the New York Times is filled with concert announcements. There are incomparable museums, a lively theatre, great publishing houses, a famous university. The Times itself (”All the News That’s Fit to Print”) is a splendid civic ornament, sometimes mistaken, often dull, but never bitter, cheap or malicious; at lunch in its palatial offices the following grace is said:
    O Lord, the Giver of All Good,
    In whose just Hands are all our Times,
    We thank Thee for our daily Food
    Gathered (as News) from many Climes.
    Bless All of Us around this Board
    And all beneath this ample Roof;—
    What we find fit to print , O Lord ,
    Is , after all , the Pudding’s Proof.
    May Those we welcome come again
    A nd Those who stay be glad , Amen.
    And the city itself, with its sharp edges and fiery colours, is a thing of beauty; especially seen from above, with Central Park startlingly green among the skyscrapers, with the tall towers of Wall Street hazy in the distance, with the two waterways blue and sunny and the long line of an Atlantic liner slipping away to sea. It is a majestic sight, with no Wordsworth at hand to honour it, only a man with a loudspeaker or a 50 cent guide book.
    So leaving Manhattan is like retreating from a snow summit. When you drive back along the highway the very air seems to relax about you. The electric atmosphere softens, the noise stills, the colours blur and fade, the pressure eases, the traffic thins. Soon you are out of the city’s spell, only pausing to look behind, over the tenements and marshes, to see the lights of the skyscrapers riding the night.

2.
Extra-Territorial
    H old on, though, before you go for good, and make a brief detour to First Avenue, at the point where 45th Street debouches drably into the East River. The United Nations may not be there much longer, and if you never see it in its Corbusier palace beside the water, you will regret it always. For