It’s news to no one that New York City is one of those places that ‘takes all kinds.’ In the space of one subway ride, you could encounter a toothless, shoeless homeless guy begging for change, a breakdancing dwarf, a six-foot tall Brazilian waif on her way to a photo shoot, and an enterprising middle-aged man in coke bottle glasses hawking AA batteries. It’s the beautiful disaster that makes this city so fascinating, particularly to someone like me who loves people watching, and loves to simply observe the world at large.
I work in a part of the city that lays claim to an even higher ratio of freaks than other areas of Manhattan. While the corporate drones have cornered Midtown—men in their button down shirts and slim dress pants, women in their stiletto pumps and tailored shirtdresses—the area around 14th Street is a region where the outliers are the in crowd.
A few of the people I encounter on a day to day basis…achingly artistic students at the Parsons School of Design, Jamaican nannies with their well-heeled, hipster charges, and concave stomached artist types who subsist on cup upon cup of the crack-cocaine level amounts of caffeine they consume at Joe, the painfully hip local coffee shop. These are the locals though; these groups don’t surprise me anymore. They are the scenery, and only when I put myself in the frame of mind of a visitor to New York City, of someone who traveled here from more homogenous middle America (as I did several years ago) do I see just how disarming it all can be.
These days, the man who sits outside the deli yelling humorous, surprisingly bold lines at passersby is just another sound my brain transforms to city white noise. “Lady in black, I KNOW you comin’ back!” he howls, with hopes for a smile, a laugh, and above all, a donation to his tin can. On some days, the man is just another pest to ignore. On others, he’s a needed ego boost from an unexpected source. On the best days, he’s a smack-upside-the-head dose of perspective, a reminder that even when faced with a hard life, the hardest life, one can find reason to smile, to laugh.
To get past the uncomfortableness of encountering those who you’ll never understand and appreciate the rainbow of quirks, tics and eccentricities that this little microcosm of humanity brings to the party, is to see the more colorful side of life. When I think about it, I’m grateful for the man who walks up and down 14th Street with his pet cat perched atop his head. What else would I have to ponder on my walk to the subway, besides the mundane details of my day job? How does the cat get there? Is he declawed? Does anything ever spook him and make him jump down? Does his tail tickle the back of his owner’s neck? And what of the woman who take her pet parrot for walks? “May I take his picture?” I venture one day, consumed with the beauty of this exotic oasis in the urban desert. “Of course!” she responds with pride. “He loves having his picture taken!”
It takes all kinds.
Tags: New York City life
