Gabriella Grimes (Final Paper because "why not?")

The Upper East Side is Full of Ants

    New York City is easily one of the most romanticized cities in the nation, and perhaps even the world. One never quite often comes in contact with someone who hasn’t heard of this city full of bright people and bright lights, whether via a book, movie, or some other source of questionable information. By New York City, most people, of course, mean Manhattan. A surprising number of people are unaware that Manhattan is not synonymous with New York City, as there are four other boroughs which occupy the space. Due to this preconceived idea of what New York City is, people have the tendency to view it in one light, and because of incredible works of fiction, this means dull streets and buildings, too many people rushing from Point A to Point B, ironic coffee shops with the art of local artists adorning its walls, and subways on which creepy men thrice your age will stare at you for an uncomfortably long period of time before you make eye contact with a handsome stranger. From my personal experiences, New York City is not just about the yellow taxi-cabs or the hipsters drawing in Union Square; it’s really so much more than that in terms of aesthetics, and because there are so many aspects of the city to take into account, it’s hard for most people to portray the “less exciting” parts of it. However there is amazing beauty in simplicity, and one of the most simplistically beautiful areas in the city to observe is the Upper East Side. Living in East Harlem for the past two years, I was never far from this area, yet I avoided it. Nevertheless, starting college on the Upper East Side forced me to explore more of this area in New York City’s borough of Manhattan, and although it’s an incredibly intimidating environment, there’s a certain unique beauty to it which sets it apart.

    My most recent run in with the Upper East Side was not too long ago on an early Friday evening. The weather forecast for the day was questionable, and stepping above ground from the train station, I felt as though the clouds had made their way from the sky to thousands of feet below, onto the back of my neck. The humidity was horribly uncomfortable, and within a minute of me being outside, I had begun to perspire. The train I was on just four minutes before had been air conditioned perfectly, and the drastic change in temperature and air quality caused my jacket to cling to my now slightly damp arms. I was always one to overheat easily, and the horribly warm and wet air took me out of my comfort zone in this already unfamiliar environment. Before this point, I don’t think I had ever made the trip to 77th ST and Lexington Avenue by myself, and although I would be meeting friends in just a short amount of time, I would have to spend the present by myself until arrival to my destination. New environments are always terrifying when you’re alone, and it isn’t just the aspect of it being a foreign place; when you’re alone in a place you’ve never been to, you’re forced to take care of yourself more. You have to be keener to your surroundings and actually use your abilities to travel around. When I’m with someone else in a new place, even if it’s new to them as well, there are still two people working together to stay on track, but alone, it’s very easy to get lost in your own thoughts as well as the surrounding area. And as soon as I realized I would have to find my way to my friend’s job alone, I perked up and stopped in front of a black barred fence to get my bearings, and my sudden attention to this place caused each of my senses to be assaulted.

It was just after six p.m. and the Friday didn’t make it any better, as there were people rushing to and fro in an attempt to make it home as quickly as possible. The horns of taxis blared deafeningly as their loud engines revved up when the lights changed from red to green. Both women and men stomped quickly up and down the sidewalk, their high heels and loafers making abrupt slapping sounds on the pavement, and it seemed as though every other person was speaking loudly on the phone. Phrases of “I’ll meet you there,” and, “I was thinking Chinese for dinner,” as well as, “You’ll never believe what this ass in my office did today,” became jumbled together to make a loud hum of voices, and I thought it was so funny that everyone was having their own conversation about things they found important, and it became lost in the sounds of the city. As a bus heading further downtown from Riverdale in the Bronx sped past me, I could hear a slight buzz in my ear due to the vehicle’s massive weight flying by me at such a ferocious pace, and just moments later, I heard an oncoming train from beneath my feet. The sounds of the city can be thought of as a song: the horns, the engines, the heels, and the hums were all unique sounds on their own, as are the guitar, the bass, the percussion, and the poetic verses of something that comes together to create your favorite song you hear on the radio. The noises attacking my ear drums on the Upper East Side is a beautiful melody to some and that annoying tune your neighbors play at three a.m. to others. To me, it just is Manhattan. These sounds are part of what makes this place what it is, and although I love this tune, sometimes I feel the need to warp the sound with my headphones, so everything becomes a mumble. On this particular Friday, when I realized which direction I had to walk to get to 75th st, I called my friend to let her know I was on my way, and as I began to walk, my voice joined in with the others’, and as did the sound of Doc Martens hitting the sidewalk while I made a bad joke about the weather.

    I never quite understood why one would choose the Upper East Side as a place of residence  based purely on aesthetics. It’s not Harlem, with its brownstones from the sixties which give the area a vintage aura and alternative Black youth who get the side-eye from their elders who wonder why they have their hair shaved on the sides; nor is it East Harlem with its colorful murals of strong single mothers holding their children in this new territory, or its very real man riding around on a giant tricycle with fake chickens attached to it as he blasts Salsa music from a boombox that he must have had since the early 90s; it’s not even as conservatively eccentric as St. Marks, where all the angsty teens go dressed in all black to get piercings behind their parents’ backs in one of the shops with rainbow wigs and bright pink mohawk beanies in front of its dirty window lined with bright green fluorescent lights. The Upper East Side is not as appealing for the eyes as any of these other places, but then of course you have to look at who’s living there. Walking down the street, I noticed that most of the people walking around this neighborhood were middle-aged and older white Americans, probably most with a decent amount of money, children, and friends; and the surrounding area would be perfect for all three of those things. The Upper East Side has beautiful boutiques with fashion designers I could never hope to afford, restaurants with white tablecloths that I would mess up very easily, buildings either so old they have historical significance or so young that they too can cost a fortune because of an abundance of amenities no actual person needs, and Catholic schools which produce Atheists instead of the intended devout followers of God. Walking down Lexington Avenue, I could easily imagine a middle aged couple bringing their friends to one of these worn out brown buildings with beige trim which you can’t quite tell its present uses and explaining to them that some classical musician performed there once just a few years ago. I felt that the large buildings, each a different shade of grey, would be appealing to a man who likes very dull colors when he comes home because he spends all day as an art teacher buried in paints, markers, and the colorful creativity of his private school students. I thought that the “gourmet” deli which carried everything my local grocery stores do, but at a slightly higher price, would be appealing to someone who just doesn’t care about prices because they’re a diplomat’s son. As I walked alone, I understood I was letting my imagination go just a bit crazy, however for someone like me in a neighborhood such at this one, this was how I kept my sanity. The Upper East Side does not appeal to me because of the vibrant colors littering its streets as East Harlem or the young hipsters with frohawks and New Balance sneakers as Harlem, but rather because it’s the lackthereof. This neighborhood is a mecca of conservative people who let their creativity run wild in the most simplistic ways, and this difference is what sets the Upper East Side apart from other areas.

As I awkwardly waddled down East 75th st from Lexington Ave to Third with a messenger bag and my ukulele on my back, I noticed a varying amount of scents, some pleasant, and others ones I would never like to smell again. A sweet aroma which must have been a cake drifted through the window of an apartment on the ground level of a building. It reminded me of the cakes my mom had made for all of my life, and I was particularly fond of my ability to smell at that point, as I could almost taste the delicious dessert in the back of my mouth. Of course since I have the greatest luck of any person in the world, as I took in a deep breath of nostalgia-filled baked air, I managed to reach the horrifying part of the block at which there happened to be a garbage truck picking up trash. This giant once-white mechanical monster with its splashes of brown, red, yellow, and green everywhere on its enormous body seemed to be the physical manifestation of all the evil in this world. The horrible thing about the smell of garbage trucks is that they are really all the worst scents a person could encounter on a daily basis conveniently wrapped up in one disgusting package so you can remember the horrors of everyday life all at once. This particular garbage truck reminded me of the baby who soils his diaper on the bus when his mother has to get off at the last stop and so do I.  It reminded me of the alleys I walk past beside bars where every night like clockwork, drunkards go to relieve their alcohol-filled bladders. Also present was the scent of that questionable piece of meat I wrapped up in a ziplock bag couple months ago and forced it deeper and deeper into my fridge every passing week until I opened my fridge one day and thought an animal had lived its entire life in it. I could smell the  week-old mayonnaise that had been left under the sun and even the hungry wild animals ignored this jar of oil and egg despair; and speaking of eggs,  I could also smell the eggs my friend who speaks too closely to me with their mouth too wide open had for breakfast. Mix all of these scents together with just a hint of bleach and that was the odor that the universe decided to bless me with on this lovely Friday evening. This wasn’t beautiful. This wasn’t an aspect of the Upper East Side which I admire, but it was reality. Even in this alluring neighborhood with its pale grey sidewalks and perfectly manicured grass surrounding trees in barred off squares, there’s garbage and rats and bugs, and the uncertainty that every other human being on this Earth faces on whether or not their existence means something. 
When I walked through the Upper East Side just a week ago, I found it very intimidating; when you’re not used to a place, you create an idea of it on your head based on what you might see for a short period of time or what others might have told you. However glances and hearsay aren’t reliable sources of information, and the only way to realize that humanity is connected despite our varied lifestyles is to get out and go somewhere. 77th Street is not a place for royalty, and people who live there are not more important, more relevant, or less unsure about life than anyone else. They can sit on their balconies fourteen stories up, and look down at everyone and compare them to ants, however those people looking up will think, “What an ant of a person that one is.” Humanity has spent centuries perfecting--or rather attempting to perfect--our means of life and the structures and environments we live in. I might live a modest life in a small apartment in a colorful neighborhood in which a man rides a tricycle with chickens attached, and another person might live in a neighborhood rich in the history of their Black relatives, and one more person might live on top of a piercing parlor where a fifteen year old with a fake I.D. and a grudge against his parents is getting his eyebrow pierced, but how are we different from the man on his fourteenth story balcony? We all are here, we all are living, and we all will live. When we die, there may be no recollection of us besides in the minds of just a couple more generations, and then what? Not to be gruesome, but maggots will do their work on the decaying bodies which once held a soul and thoughts, and nature will do the rest. Humans make the mistake of thinking that nature works for us, but it could very well be the other way around. Nature will take over and do what it needs to do to survive. Humanity will continue perfecting, for centuries, and maybe even millennia from now, but as we do so, Mother Nature will continue to go about her business as well, and every time one of us large ants perils, a small ant will have another leaf to hide under when it begins to rain. Really it’s a beautiful thought: that when we can no longer stare at these brown buildings with the beige trim on Lexington Ave, we can help an animal live its life. I for one wouldn’t be sorry if three hundred years from now, I had helped a tree in front of a very grey building in a very bland city grow to its full potential and provide shade and a place to rest for a beautiful bird.