Dear Reader
There was a time, back in Joburg, South Africa, when I would watch any and everything that was set in New York. Of course that included the likes of TV shows Sex and the City and Gossip Girl but it also extended to silly reality spinoffs such as The City, where I would ignore the shenanigans going on with whatshername and the other whatshername, and just focus on the filler shots of city streets and buildings. That I’ve lived here for the past 12 years and call New York my (adopted) home is still somewhat of a pinch-me feeling. Even more so in those moments when I remember I gave birth to a New Yorker, who very likely will have a New York accent (and not, sadly, a South African one—not that there is one accent, but that’s a conversation for another time).
It’s not easy to upend one’s entire life and move to another country. And, as I sometimes have to clarify, I didn’t come here to live in the U.S.; I came here to live in New York. It’s the city that I was drawn to—as a big fish in a small pond back home, I was eager to dive into a bigger pool of water, even if that meant starting all over again. Which is how it felt when I first came here. Overwhelmingly, so.
New York is a city that will show you the best of what could be, of what’s possible for your dreams. But it can also bring out the worst of your fears. The expense of living here, the overwhelming choice in just about everything, the noise—the unrelenting cacophony, the fact that there’s almost always someone who’s better than you at the thing you do.
It took some time, but I learned the best way to live in New York City is to try to make the city your own. For me, this meant finding little pockets of space where I could feel like I belonged. As a freelance journalist, I didn’t have a 9-5 to naturally create that, and so that’s where running really helped. Running the streets of the city and its outer landscapes allowed me to become familiar with neighbourhoods and boroughs, people and places. And it led me to make The Rundown series. By running to the places in my favourite movies and TV shows, I felt a little more closer to the magic, to the wonder of the city. And to the make-believe of it all. It’s that make-believe that powers a lot of New York: taking a chance on oneself, often making something out of very little, being persistent, and yes, even, unrelenting.
All of this is to draw your attention (if it hasn’t already been) to a fantastic exhibition currently on at the Museum of the City of New York, called This Is New York.
The museum (among my favourite of them all) is 100 years old, and to celebrate this milestone of milestones, it has put together an all-encompassing exhibition that looks at how the city has been portrayed in art and pop culture. It’s true that for many of us transplants or immigrants, we came to know of the city through images and sounds transported across the seas before we ever set foot in this concrete jungle. The books, plays, movies, TV shows and songs made New York a familiar place. The exhibition gathers some of these seminal moments across different media in one place, making for a rich dive into what artists have said and felt about this tumultuous town.
A stand-out piece is the video montage of New York films that covers 16 screens, drawn from hundreds of I’m walkin’ here movies about the city made over the past century. There is so much to take in—from Langston Hughes to Edward Hopper, from the album cover art to the on-set photographs of classic films. It’s an exhibition to go back to over and over—before it ends on July 21st, that is.
And as a flashback, here’s an old episode of The Rundown dedicated to something I celebrate yearly, my New York-aversary! [This one happened to be my 7th—we’ve come a long way, baby!]
Thank you for reading!
Stay safe, stay sane,
Your neighbour
Nadia