Manhattan, Time, and Money

You think everything in Manhattan is on a fast track? Wrong! This is a sophisticated society. In this City, real money does not come your way unless you are a strategic planner, able to think at least ten or twenty years ahead. Sometimes two or three generations. Of course, there are the hustlers. The small, fat guys in their stretched limos. And then there are those who wear white shoes…But their fortunes change. Nietzsche said, religion is opium for the masses. Apparently, there are about 1,800 different religions in the U.S. They all believe that their God is the only true one. In a courtroom, they would call it hearsay. Here in Manhattan, the only religion based on a “True God” is money. “In God We Trust”, as printed on your dollar bills. That is the real opium. * Is that all? -- No. That’s only the surface, the stereotypes, even though they are real. Manhattan isn’t just about money. It is just that every one of us is living above his means, including the millionaires. Money is only our common, pressing imperative. But Manhattan is not just about money. Manhattan is about the world. Manhattan IS the world. There is heart, love, sorrow and nostalgia here. There are almost an infinite number of different ethnic groups. And then there are the artists, the dreamers, the philosophers, the scientists, etc… You name it. There are the neighborhoods: those small communities, buried among the skyscrapers, where everyone knows everybody else. Where people greet each other, ask how their children are doing, invite each other to community events. No, Manhattan is not the faceless metropolis that people -who have never been here- think it is. It is a city of individualists, each longing for freedom from the pressure of earning money to pay rent. It is Central Park, where people gather to listen to Pavarotti, have a picnic, and watch hundreds of different bird species. Manhattan is the museums, the concerts, the restaurants, the clubs, the hidden sex life. It is China Town, Little Italy, Wall Street and the Upper West Side. Manhattan is the pet owners who admire the beauty of their dogs rather than the girls. It is the rich, the super-rich, the regular citizens, the poor, the beggars and the drug addicts. It is the White Protestants, the Muslims, the Hassidic Jews, the Orientals, the African-Americans, the Islanders and the Hispanics. Manhattan is all of that, and everything else.

02/04/01