I was walking to Whole Foods one lunchtime and came across a group of people looking at something on the sidewalk. It was a baby bird that had fallen out of a nest built into the grill at the top of the store. One woman went away and got a paper cup to put it in, I went into Whole Foods to see if they had a ladder long enough to return it to its nest, which they didn't. Then several workmen came around the corner and of course wondered what was going on. They went and got some scaffolding, and the bird was duly returned to the nest, accompanied by the clapping of a by-now fairly large crowd. I went away feeling uplifted and happy, and as others here have pointed out, it's good to remember these times... in these times.
31
I love the uplifting themes of these letters but because around 50% of New York City residents are non-white, it is disappointing that they are not more represented. Reminds me that we live in such a white-centric world.
1
@GEO2SFO
I have been reading these stories for weeks and haven't noticed any of them mentioning any of the colors
Of any of the people in any of the stories. The people could be any color. To me, they are "human being" colored.
17
@GEO2SFO
I don’t see any indication of color in any of these vignettes.
Where exactly is this alleged bias?
7
I left New York City decades ago. These stories bring me home and remind me why I loved the City and still do.
9
More stories of human kindness, please.
21
My story of NYC in the 80s: I was waiting for a bus, carrying a birthday cake in a white box wrapped in string. I knelt down to tie my shoelace, putting the cake beside me on the sidewalk. When I stood up, the cake was gone. I looked around puzzled. A woman stood nearby holding my cake.
"Uh, that's my cake," I said.
"I found it," she said. "I deserve a reward."
"But I didn't lose it," I said.
She held her ground.
I gave her five bucks, she gave me back my cake, we both went on our way.
16
My best NYC story: On the first visit to our daughter who had relocated to Manhattan for a job, my spouse and I were unsure of which train to take from our hotel to her apartment. As we discussed it, a youngish woman asked where we were going, and said "...follow me when I get off at the next stop - I will show you." And so we did. Several blocks from our daughter's place, we stood on a corner, hesitating once again, when an older woman gave us unsolicited directions. No one better ever tell me that NYers are unfriendly and cold.
35
Great to see these comments!
Years ago I used to read a few columns of the Reader's Digest of the day that carried similar stories. Always welcome!
13
Two days ago, I got a positive test result for cancer. I’ve been struggling to find the light in the world as I begin this journey. These stories reminded me of where the light is - it’s all around us. Thanks so much.
83
@TeriS Wishing you the best in the days ahead.
39
It’s the kindness. May it surround you.
27
@TeriS
Healing thoughts heading your way. All the best in the days ahead.
25
As if I needed more reminders that I do not live in the Greatest City in the World! Thanks (weep, weep) a lot, Times!
26
My NYC moment came right after the Armed Forces Day Parade in May 1968... I was a 2nd Class Cadet (junior) at West Point, Class of 1969... A Firstie (senior) I knew from the Scuba Club and I went walking thru Central Park after we had returned his saber and my rifle to the buses that brought me to NYC... He had just bought his car and had driven down from West Point... We were walking from the buses to the apartment of a friend of his family on Central Park West to change into "civvies" for a night on the town... So we walked thru Central Park in our most formal uniform, Full Dress Gray over White, or the gray coat with lots of buttons and stripes and tails over white pants, with the tall black "shako" hat held under one arm against our chest... We must have been quite the sight to everyone else in the part that day, something out of the Napoleonic era...! The weather was glorious, we were both at the cusp of our officer career in the Army, and making the most of life, as we both knew upon graduation we were most certainly headed for Vietnam to command an infantry platoon in combat as newly minted lieutenants... Well, we both did eventually serve in Vietnam as Infantry lieutenants, but my friend Charles did not make it back alive... His class of 1968 saw 20 killed there, and my class 18... I often think of him, and wish I had a photo of us walking thru Central Park in those splendid uniforms, in that amazing weather, and all of our lives ahead of us...
107
@Matt B. You just painted that picture in words. I can see him too.
23
Not NYC but rather St Petersburg, Russia in 1993:
My mother and I were visiting from the US just after the fall of the USSR and were repeatedly warned of the crime and danger. Especially the metro (subway) was to be avoided at all costs! So of course we took the metro the first day.
Coming up the escalator, my mother tripped and fell. Her purse flew off one way, her camera the other. Two great big hulking young men ran up and grabbed them!
And then they handed her valuables to me, picked my mother up and put her on her feet, smiled and left.
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@Adina
I was in St. Petersberg after the fall, walking on Nevsky Prospekt, when a multitude of Romanians of all ages and all heights (easier to get to all parts of the body) robbed me and my friend of most everything. Nobody helped - they all just stood and watched even though my Russian friend asked for help in Russian.
Russia now has McDonald's, Gucci, Dior, Chanel and everything bling bling. But it still has crime, poverty in the lower classes and corruption and money in the upper classes. So what happened to you in the subway is a good thing. Putin is not. Trump is not. Human beings are.
21
A few years ago, I was walking to the metro after a day of Russian lessons at a language school in Saint Petersburg. An angry-looking older man drew up next to me, and just as I was wondering whether I was about to have my first bad experience in Russia, he pointed out that my backpack was hanging open. On another occasion, I was at the metro station trying to figure out how to top up my metro card. A woman walking by picked up on my anxiety, came over, and helped me through the process.
I have many reasons for loving New York City, and I would be thrilled to live there, but Saint Petersburg will always be my favorite city in the world.
New York is not really a city at all. It is a thousand small towns stacked on top of each other, with the same small town kindness and concern. Long-time New Yorkers know this. Whenever I encounter "New York Rude" it is usually a commuter or a newcomer who is too overwhelmed by it all to even see the people around them as people.
60
@Justin Starren that has always been my feeling about New York, but I've never been able to articulate it so well. Thanks!
16
It is the greatest city in the world. I don't live there and never have but I always daydreamed about living there. There is a pace, a beat if you will that is absolutely different than anywhere else I have ever been. When I get off that train at Grand Central, the world begins to hum and my heart races. I know that I will be seeing and doing things that make me extremely happy when I am there. I love NY!
33
Jordan Barillas - That's my New York, too. Jaunty, vital New Yorkers supremely friendly and inclusive. Everyone's family.
18
In the early ‘80s, I was probably 22 when I flew to New York from Seattle to visit a friend. A little nervous about my first long distance adventure on my own — especially after hearing about “rude New Yorkers” — I found a bus to Manhattan. A young man, with the brusk accent of New York, asked me if I was visiting. Hmm, what should I expect now, I thought. He ended up being my tour guide from the back of the bus, making sure I knew how to get to Midtown. I quickly fell in love with the city.
59
Up here in the Adirondacks, we say we're "going to New York" when we mean NYC, I guess because Montreal is only two hours away, and it takes as long to get to Boston as to The City.
8
@Ms Wargo...I grew up in Westchester. We'd refer to Manhattan as "The City."
12
@Tucson. And out West, San Franciscans make a point to refer to their home as ‘the City’. This proud native Californian has lived on both coasts. Sorry, SF: Only New York deserves to be called ‘the City’!
8
@Tucson
same thing when I lived in White Plains. Even though we lived in a city, we talked about going into The City
5
I just can't forget this. Some forty years ago, walking across 96th street towards Lex, a man grabbed the handbag of an older woman on the sidewalk. A pedestrian chased after him. A car stopped in the middle of the street and the driver took off after the thief, leaving the car door open and the car unattended. And I made it my business to make sure no one stole the unattended car. No deliberation, no coordination. Just the spontaneous impulse of good hearts doing the right thing in the moment. We need to remember just how often we see this behavior on display, in incidents large and small, horrific and ordinary.
140
@Lillian I recently experienced something similarly heartwarming here in SF. I was in the Mission District in SF and walking up to my car with my big shoulder bag, a shopping bag, and my new phone in my back pocket (amateur mistake!). A man came up behind me and reached into my pocket to grab and run. I started after him, yelling, "Stop that thief!!" and was amazed to see several pedestrians on the block ahead try to cut him off. As he changed course other people joined in, one car stopped for driver to get out and another swerved to cut the thief off. He gave up and threw my phone away as the crowd chasing him had grown to over a dozen people.
So Thankful for the sense of community; especially for the man who led the charge and said afterward, "We don't want that in our neighborhood."
11
The Waldbaum's customer - she was at the Appetizing counter, not the deli!
32
@CKS and what does "under the paper mean"?? Thanks in advance!
I flew into Minneapolis in the summer of 2003. They told everyone that no flights were going to New York because of a blackout. I thought to myself, "I will be damned if I'm going to miss this". I ran through the terminal to a flight to Newark like my life depended on it. Thoughts of running through terminals in Spain, Heathrow flooded back to me. I made it on the flight. We pulled up to Port Authority in the bus and all was dark, a line of people sat on the curb. I was in heaven. I started walking downtown and took pictures. Deli owners were giving away ice cream. I ran into a friend in Stuyvesant Square Park. We walked around the East Village and lived the New York dream.
70
Years ago, when my son was still small enough for me to carry him in my arms, I took him for an outing to Central Park. We lived in New Jersey, and I drove into the city and parked on West something-or-other street near Central Park West. But soon after getting into the park, it started to rain. As I walked faster and faster to get out of the park and back to the car, my son was crying as the rain came down harder. A couple in yellow rain slickers was walking ahead of us, and just as we crossed CPW they motioned me into the vestibule of their apartment building. They then produced an umbrella and bath towel to wrap my son in. He stopped crying, and I thanked the couple as I started back to the car. I still have that old towel and have not been able to part with it.
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Dear N,
That is a lovely story and it made me happy to read yet another example of the genuine kindness and generosity of spirit of the many New Yorkers who exemplify precisely what Jordan wrote of in her Diary entry this week. A helping hand, freely and gladly extended to those with a perceived need, in your case N, for a snug towel to dry your son and make him once again content in your arms, and an umbrella to shield you both. It is so nice that you still have that towel. Thank you for the lift your comment provided.
Stay well,
Allen
53
I helped family in NYC recently and had zero time to do anything fun. It was torture! I didn't get to go to Zabar's. I didn't get to Macy's. I didn't get to Rockefeller Center, Time Square, or anywhere else on my list of fun things to do in New York.
I do have one really good (at least I think so) story to share: years ago my late mother and I were killing time in the Times Square area waiting for our assigned time for the NBC Studio Tour. While walking across the street I tripped and fell. She stood there stymied. I'm in the middle of the street, on my hands and knees, my glasses went one way, my purse went another. Two people picked me up and got me to the curb safely. Another person grabbed my glasses and handed them to me. A fourth person grabbed my purse...and put it in my arms! My mother just stood there agape. Whenever, in my travels, I meet people who say New Yorkers aren't nice, always in a hurry, yada yada, I tell them this story! We ARE nice! We ARE helpful! We care about others! To the four people who helped me that day I have a heartfelt THANK YOU to tell them. That day I just stood there at the curb in shock for a moment and simply forgot to say a word of thanks.
103
After Sandy-
When I lived in NY, saying you were going to Manhattan was the mark of tourist or a relatively recent transplant.
You went to The City.
It still pops out to me. Lovely.
35
@mjIf you lived in the Bronx, you said that you were going Downtown!
13
@mjFrom my Masterpiece viewing I see that Brits say going into the City for London. And the Tubes is what they say for the London subway. That's what we said for PATH back when. My freshman Faytteville NC roomie was much amused by the City and the Tubes on her first trip to NYC..
7
@Bernice Glenn - You beat me to it! Usually Downtown, sometimes Manhattan, but never The City. The Bronx was Uptown.
8
These are always wonderful. Balm for the news headlines. I wish I could read these all day. Each one makes me smile.
70
Thank you for publishing these reflections.
Reading them provides a sane but brief interlude.
74
I grew up in Chicago. In the summer of 1975, when I was 12, my older brother who had attended NYU, took me to NYC for a one-week vacation. Upon arriving in NYC, he took me to Village jazz club, The Other End (aka The Bitter End). Arriving at the entrance, the doorman said to my brother, "There's a cover charge and a two-drink minimum. Your small friend here can have his in hot chocolate." That's when I decided I loved New York. 18 years later, I made it my home.
103
In these columns about the greatest city in the world are stories that remind us that the folks that reside here are the most helpful, friendliest people you will ever meet, just don't get all weepy and gush, I don't have the time for gushing!
47
To Yonah and the other writers; to Agnes; and to all faithful readers, with affection:
From the Metropolitan Diary
January 27, 1982
“ESCAPE”
I wasn't mugged!
I'm very pleased!
My mugger had a cold
and sneezed!
— MAY ROSE SALKIN
24
@Jordan, I hope you are not coming to San Francisco. Its Manhattan without the excitement. Better weather though...
If you are moving to LA, heh, you have my sympathies.
11
@Gary Valan
I seem to recall it being a lot more interesting here...
7
@Gary Valan Better weather? Perhaps in February. I went in August and I froze. Had to go to Macy's and buy a sweater. For me NYC reigns supreme, no hills to deal with but SF a pretty city to be sure.
12
@Gary Valan
The weather in SF is awful. I'll take a NYC hot summer day over wet fog any day.
8
Yes, you can grip your keys between your fingers like that, but if expecting to be mugged just use the 2nd and third digits and make a fist. (I am assuming that only good, and no bad, people read this newspaper; if you are bad then shame on you.)
22
I keep thinking about Yonah Lempert Luecken’s Diary entry “On the Williamsburg Bridge,” complete with Agnes Lee’s uncharacteristically menacing drawing.
“I knew I was about to be mugged. Steeling myself, I gripped my keys between my fingers and prepared to fight back.”
But the signals had been wrongly read in this case, as the young man merely wished to share his excitement at seeing a particularly gorgeous moonlit and cloud be-wreathed Manhattan skyline from the bridge.
Sometimes these entries express the loneliness and isolation one can feel in the city. I think back a year or two to the entry of a young college graduate who wrote of how lonely he felt, newly moved to the city and working, as I recall, at the Strand. He wrote to and received advice from his college philosophy professor at the University of Rochester.
I also think of the way being alone in the city can feel exhilarating. The late Lewis Mumford, speaking in Ken Burns’s documentary film “Brooklyn Bridge,” talked of one particular day when he was walking across the bridge, “feeling happily alone” as he put it, and suddenly sensed the power and the glory of the modern age of the skyscraper city.
How can we decode the signals we think we receive from others in circumstances like the one the writer described? “He seemed to be loitering. . . It was late, and there was no one around except him and me.”
I always wonder: how can I be prudent and yet avoid becoming paranoid in my beloved home town?
Allen
41
@Allen J. Share, regarding " the loneliness and isolation one can feel in the city"
I recall this in a play or comic's routine: "Who was it who said it's a fine line between isolated and self-absorbed? Oh, that's right - I said it. Very well-put."
(And there was a funny play called "Gorgeous Fever" at the Knitting Factory theater, with a scene where the star was doing a dialogue between herself and a cassette tape with the sound of her own voice. At one point, the tape of her own voice said something that sounded profound, and she nodded thoughtfully and answered "I couldn't agree more.")
23
@Allen J. Share. Thanks, Allen, for your extremely sensitive, thoughtful, introspective and personal thoughts on our inner lives and the connections we make, and want to make with others.
27
Dear Elle,
Thank you so much for your very gracious, generous, and carefully chosen words. Please know how very much they are appreciated.
Stay well,
Allen
22
Dear Jaime Roth and Dean,
Jaime, your daughter absolutely did need to cuddle up and take a comforting nap on your lap as the subway, much like our larger journeys in life, noisily hurtled through its dark tunnels. Her feet, neatly tucked onto that empty seat were where they needed to be at that moment, and the kind gesture of a stranger to warm her legs with a soft, fluffy sweatshirt was, well, a wonderful gesture of the innate kindness of most people anywhere on any continent, of any nationality or background.
The image you give of your daughter's beautiful red curls overspilling your lap also reminds us of the great joys to be found in our natural world, a world that so frequently now seems to erupt in both natural and human-provoked violence.
Dean, I heartily second Alan's recommendation of Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending and also perhaps some Telemann; I also recommend McCall-Smith's new series of novels starting with My Italian Bulldozer and then the No. 1 Ladies Detective series.
For me, to process all this violence, I'm off to water-walk against the current. The loose group of people I generally meet up with includes a Viet Nam vet and one of his severely autistic twins. We all push against the current, as life can be hard, and it's important to develop resistance. But then, we alternate and flow with the current, letting the water carry us along, enjoying the sky, the birds, the clouds, the gentle winds.
Elissa
38
@els
Thank you for your recommendations, Elissa. (This is my third attempt to post this reply; I hope that it appears.) As I told Allen, I had never heard Vaughan Williams’s *The Lark Ascending* until I read his (Allen’s) comment. I found the music on YouTube, and I listened to it this morning. Ahhhh!
In the late 1970s, I played the soprano recorder in a small group, and we sometimes did Telemann. I still have my recorder. I need to dust it off.
Your “water-walking against the current” makes me think of our local state park in CT. It’s a great place to go to listen to the birds, the breeze in the trees, and the babbling of the water in the streams. A place to forget the rest of the world for a while.
By the way, one of this week’s Diary entries contains a dangling participle. I wonder if you saw it. I corrected it in one of my comments that has yet to be posted. (Perhaps the moderators thought that I was nasty and therefore rejected my comment.)
I’m making this reply short (short for me, that is). For whatever reasons, my comments have not been appearing this week. I received an email from the NYT in which they said that they’re working on some technical problems with the comments.
Dean
Thursday, Aug. 8, 2019, 1:25 p.m.
9
@Dean
Hi Dean,
It is certainly very frustrating when our comments (here, but elsewhere as well) seem to vanish into the ether, whatever the reason. Hopefully both physical (as in atoms, the solar system, etc) and moral universes will right themselves once again and small children will no longer be ripped from their parents' arms and tossed into large cages with tinfoil blankets for comfort and messages floating about the Internet or "cloud" will find their correct destinations.
Since you are located in Connecticut and have mentioned a charming park nearby, may I recommend to you and your wife and to all reading this a full-day visit to wonderful Hill-Stead Museum and Gardens in Farmingham, CT--near the famous Miss Porter's School. This is the land of beautiful rolling farms and fields separated by miles of gorgeous high stone fences, still some cattle grazing, classic white-steepled churches. And it is the place to which Theodate Pope (later Wheeler) brought her mid-Western wealthy parents to retire, build (she and her father were the architects) a farmhouse-mansion surrounded by wonderful working gardens and housing a truly extraordinary collection of Impressionist and Asian art that magically and quite casually decorate the family living space.
I'll continue in a later message--but probably won't get published until next week.
Elissa
9
@els
Please excuse my errors--sometimes my fingertips run away with themselves:
Miss Porter's and HillStead are located in lovely Farmington, CT.
The wildly creative and philanthropic architect of HillStead, Theodate (orig., Effie) Pope married a diplomat named Riddle shortly after her "swim" in the North Atlantic during the sinking of the Lucitania. She, along with her parents, always maintained a large apartment in midtown Manhattan on Madison Avenue, so I suppose we can claim her as a New Yorker as well.
A peaceful week's end to all,
Elissa
8
I still look for the Metro Diary every Monday morning when I drag my paper in from the yard and only after not finding it, remember that I have to go on line to read it. I do miss the in-print version though, it made my Mondays so much more palatable...
46
@Tom I realized recently that the print version runs on Sunday!
3
Ok, you made me cry.
40
@Marie
Yes me too.
8
I’m a bit naive so can someone please explain the “the quarter pound of Nova ...” please ?
17
@Mshoop Nova as in a type of salmon aka lox.
19
@Kristine yes, I know but the rest of it , under the paper ?
10
@Mshoop - And the belly is the fattiest, best part of the cured, cold-smoked salmon. Under the paper? I'm guessing she means the fish she wants is in the display case underneath a sheet of paper.
20
Dear diary is the only part of the NYT that makes me smile and feel uplifted. Thank you dear writers
78
@Seattlite58
I love it too, and I'm from Pennsylvania!
13
@Seattlite58 -As a Southern lady it's always been my dream to live for a time in NYC. Absolutely love each visit that I've had and will eventually get around to subletting an apartment for a month. New Yorkers are very thoughtful to us out of towners!
When my son lived in the East Village a man in the bakery said he'd follow me around the globe if I'd talk to him. You can't imagine how flattering that is to a lady. Reading The New York times on the internet is how I keep in touch with the city!
11
I love the stories of New York City. They are refreshing, real, and usually delightful. I particular liked the deli one this week. I'm sure they happen here it my native Washington too, but in the local newspaper, all we hear or read about is the guy from Queens who took over the White House. I can't wait until 2021 or 2025 (sigh on the latter). Until then, thanks NYT for the great reads!
43
I grew up in Bayside and our family, too, shopped at the Bay Terrace Shopping Center. Only we didn't buy groceries at Waldbaum's there until many years after 1968 because the supermarket was a Grand Union at least through the '70s. Also, there was an appetizing store in the shopping center then. Why would anyone buy lox at the supermarket?!
6
@Jay Kardon
Yes...you would buy lox at Waldbaum's. Most certainly you would. At Grand Union? No...you wouldn't.
23
@Jay Kardon
There was an appetizing store? I live in Bayside now. The Waldbaum's is now a Stop & Shop, and the shopping center just has the stuff you can get anywhere (Starbucks, Panera, Express, Applebee's, Foot Locker...). Judging from old photos, there used to be a bowling alley, too. I'm missing a past I never knew!
6
@Reader
We moved to Bayside when I was 6 years old, from Rego Park. We lived on 53rd Ave and Francis Lewis Blvd..I went t o JHS 158, and Bayside High School, then Queens College, after PS 162. I assure you, it was the most boring, dull, predictable, conventional, and insulated childhood and I LIVED for Saturdays in THE CITY! You didn't miss very much...I assure you. I moved into THE CITY in 1963and never looked back. That is when my real life began, and I lived there for 30 years. I miss it every day.
9
Jordan, California will never give you what New York does. I was raised in So Cal, went to college in Berkeley, but I never felt at home untill I moved to Rhode Island. California is another world and it's nothing like the East Coast.
21
@Warren Just as New York will never give you what California does (in broad strokes, since it's a giant state rather than a particular city). Take it from someone who has lived all over: You can find something special to love most places, if you're willing to take them for what they are and keep an open mind.
63
@Warren It all depends on where you live, how you present yourself/are perceived, and (sometimes) luck of the draw. Having lived all over CA, in the Midwest, and abroad, I'd say that people in Paris and SF have been the most consistently helpful, kind and patient. I know - not what you'd expect, right?!
Each interaction impacts our perceptions of place and people. Another reason Americans need to learn more about the world and people outside the US.
However, when visiting NYC I also found many there to be the same, during our visits. And am currently planning another trip there for next year.
1
This article from the Metropolitan Diary was my favorite to read this week because it reminds me there are still people who are KIND to each other in this world. It reminds me there is still good after hearing and reading stories of the shootings that occured in America this past week. Simple acts of kindness can make a person's day and can make a difference in people's lives. In my own personal life, my parents tell me to always treat others the way i'd want to be treated and reading these "dear diary" entries in this article remind me of the words of my parents and how people should show kindess and be nice to each other. I enjoyed reading about how the lady offered her sweatshirt to the mothers's daughter and the story about people helping a young girl who had moved to New York. Even though the strangers acts were little, they meant something to the young girl who had moved. These stories were small but wholesome stories that were warming to read.
103
Dear Grace,
I have always thought that what we often refer to as the small or little acts of kindness that we bestow upon one another are by no means small! at all, but very large in the sense that they immeasurably sweeten the day and greatly improve one’s outlook on life and general feeling of equanimity and well-being. The current toxic public atmosphere we are suffering through makes such kindnesses, particularly when offered us by women and men we have never even met, perhaps more important and vital than ever. Such kindnesses, as you suggested, counter the terrible news in the headlines and remind us that, indeed, there are a great many good and lovely people in the world more than willing to come to our aid, as Billy P. noted in an earlier comment about the numbers of people who offered him assistance after he had fallen on the sidewalk and injured himself. Such acts of freely given kindness are a rich thread running through many years of Metropolitan Diary entries, reflecting the city at its very best and in its essence, as Jordan’s entry this week acclaimed.
Stay well Grace,
Allen
70
@Grace. Looking back over many years, it's the memories of kindness given and received that keep warming the heart, and encourage present kindnesses.
18
@Grace
sometimes the smallest is the warmest ...
5
Couldn't all you kind New Yorkers have done something about that guy from Queens? The rest of us would have taken that as the ultimate act of kindness. Just saying.
82
@GWPDA
Sorry, but he's from the other part of New York: "rats and bad landlords..."
53
@yl
How true.......
10
@GWPDA
Hey....we tried to tell everyone what a crumb he is but a whole lot of people wouldn't listen!
41
It is Monday evening. I submitted four comments yesterday and today to the Metropolitan Diary, but they have not yet appeared. I’ll try again.
I turn to the Metropolitan Diary to ease the distress that I’m feeling from reading the rest of the news. The Diary is a breath of fresh air: There are 4 stories about people being downright NICE to each other, and there is 1 story about life going on normally at a Waldbaum’s deli.
Three mass shootings—Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton—in the space of a week. When will they stop? When will our leaders bear some responsibility?
I have been listening to “Our Town” by Aaron Copland. I recommend it. It is beautifully soothing. It might even bring a tear to your eye.
As I said, this is my fifth comment for this week’s Diary. I hope that it appears, and I hope that everyone has a peaceful week.
Dean from CT
Monday, Aug. 5, 2019, 7:50 p.m.
86
Dear Dean,
I wondered if something might have been going awry with your comments and am happy this one went through. I couldn’t’t agree with you more about Aaron Copland’s score for “Our Town,” which is a beautiful piece of music which works perfectly both with the 1940 film version of Thornton Wilder’s drama (and which won Aaron Copland an Academy Award for best original film score) and on its own as a gorgeous piece of music. And I agree with you thoroughly that the Metropolitan Diary provides at least a partial antidote to the
poisonous stories whose headlines alone are enough to freeze the blood.
Other pieces of music that might bring you that same kind of solace are Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending” and his equally beautiful “Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.”
Stay well Dean,
Allen
45
@Allen J. Share
Thank you for the Ralph Vaughn Williams' suggestions. I wish we all could be listening to them right now!
20
@Dean maybe they want to give other folks a chance to comment
1
Yes, the kindness, when you least expect it. It was never about the tourist attractions. It New Yorkers themselves that make the city serendipitous.
57
Totally agree & thanks for the warm stories! I only get into Manhattan maybe twice a year, yet I always leave with a story. Many times it is someone who will just reach out when I need directions. Other times I see kindness on the subways or streets.
It is fast paced... but incredibly rich in culture and brashly kind.
47
@independent thinker
'Brashly kind' - what an apt and terrific description!
32
I love this! Thank you for sharing these stories of kindness in the big city. It’s what impressed me too, when I worked there throughout the 80s. Strangers being so open and funny and happy and kind. So ironic given the outside impression of New Yorkers at the time—cut-throat, selfish, rude, arrogant. Not so much, in my experience. Those small moments of beauty and heart were stunning, and what I remember most.
40
I so love this, needed this today. Noticing all the beauty in NYC, in your world and sharing is a kindness too. Thank you!
72
My friend Yonah - a New Yorker now living in Talkeetna, Alaska - you are famous!
53
as for the woman who
accepted the car ride
with strangers after
9-11-2011,she's lucky
she didn't end up dead
in an squalid,abandoned
tenement.never do that.
you may not get lucky
twice.walk or take the
train,you young people
new to our troubled city.
23
@Frank During and after crises, New Yorkers are more giving and trustworthy. I hitchhiked during the subway strike and never had a problem.
54
Frank, to the contrary, the true soul of NY shines brightest at these moments. In summer 2003, the blackout struck and, as evening and darkness descended, an almost tangible understanding developed between cars and pedestrians as everyone stayed safe but got to where they were heading on a crowded but darkening Fifth Avenue without signals or street lights. Or, on September 11th, seeking a place to donate blood that sadly would not be needed, and finding it — a line two blocks long, and eerily silent. Only in NY, and only if you don’t hide behind walls of your own creation.
77
@Frank
I’m with you Frank.
These animals come out more during catastrophes.
4
We need lots more of these types of stories to read on sad days like today after the shootings.
93
I recently tripped and hurt myself on the sidewalk. So many people stopped to help, give me water, stayed with me....I love the people, who live in this town.
192
This happened to me in Portland. My face bleeding...I was left to stumble alone to my car. I needed help and...nada.
Shortly after we moved to the West Coast we watched “The LEGO Movie” with our kids. In it, a friendly surfer dude is asked about his longtime neighbor, who may have been the victim, or suspect, in a crime. “Dude, I know that guy, but I know like zippy-zap about him,” he says, happy to abandon him to his fate. Perfectly personifies the “every man is an island, entire unto himself” outlook of folks out here.
3
Great entries this week!
But to the writer, Jordan Barillas, of "Leaving Home" - New York is about the Broadway lights, the Statue of Liberty and bagels and Katz's and the beautiful, lush trees, flowers and animals of Central Park, all of this is part of the fabric of New York, and this is why many people (including me) want to visit and live in New York. All of this matters and relevant to the experience. Everything and everyone is connected in NY some way or another.
41
I agree, a lovely bunch of stories, and I always read the Metro Diary. But I now wonder what happens to this New Yorker kindness when they get into their SUVs and head for Cape Cod? Notorious they are for boorish behavior. But then Bostonians give no quarter in that department, and are equally nice and kind in most circumstances!
20
@Pam B
Bostonians "are equally nice and kind in most circumstances!"
Oh how I wish that were true! I expected as much when I left NYC for Boston fifteen years ago. But there is no equivalency. Boston certainly has its charms, but when it comes to openess, kindness, etc., it doesn't hold a candle to NYC.
12
@Ann & Pam
As someone born and bred in Connecticut (my family has lived here or someplace in New England for over 3 centuries), neither city has a claim on "openess or kindness" once it's residents have left town.
This is especially true on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons during the summer on I-91 and I-95!
4
Kindness...Yes, Jordan Barillas...kindness…
People being kind to other people is the theme that I most often notice in the Metropolitan Diary and in its comments.
Let's all of us just remember to show kindness.
177
@anne-Re- procuring ingredients for Amatriciana- When my family moved from Brooklyn to Long Island in 1960 we made a mandatory trip back once a month for specialty food we could only get from the "old neighborhood". Sarah Harrs' piece about food shopping in Queens reminds me of the valuable lessons my otherwise strict and taciturn grandmother taught me about procuring the best ingredients- shop keepers laid out the red carpet for her while greeting her with a wave of their arm and a little bow-"Signora DePasquale " Now I live three blocks from Grand Central where I can get pretty much anything I want from Murray's Cheese , Ceriello's and Pescatore. I do have to say however it is much more romantic to shop for Italian ingredients in Italy!
30
@Jeanne DePasquale Perez
Cara Jeanne, that is totally true, so romantic and the deli counter at my totally normal supermarket (PAM Panorama) looks like some expensive gourmet place in the USA. So many Italian recipes are very simple, but they use the best ingredients and that is the clue to cooking well.
PS: To other folks, if you are looking to try out some Italian recipes, make sure you procure authentic ingredients from Italy. Sure they will cost more, but we are not talking about buying filet mignon or caviar. And here is an Italian cooking site to try: "Giallo Zafferano", yes, it is in Italian, but accompanied by many easy to follow videos and the most you might have to do is translate the recipe list. And of course kilos and grams, too! So much easier to understand, as I never did understand a quarter pound, even when I lived in the USA! :)
16
@anne Excellent points about the importance of the ingredients we use. Just as kindness to others makes their and our lives sweeter, so using the best ingredients makes any dish better.
Though CA, too, has wonderful foods easily found, I always leave room in my carry-on to bring treats back from our trips to France.
I love cooking and eating Italian dishes; I'm going to look for those videos you mentioned. Merci beaucoup!
1
I was thinking that I don't have to read this column on Sunday when so much is happening. I'm so glad I did. Today's news is awful, absolutely awful. Thank you to all the writers and the NYT for these rays of humanity and hope.
216
@WF - I feel like I suddenly got so much older between age 58 and 59, and today I felt a rare benefit of that - I enjoyed the Diary on Sunday, and when out of habit I went back to the page on Monday, I enjoyed them all over again.
I'm joking (a little), as my memory's not that bad - not yet - but the new comments through which to read them made me find new nuances in them somehow. This is a good comfort percentage this week , without feeling like a Pollyanna column.
22
Hi Freddie,
I agree with you entirely; the comments always add perspectives and dimensions one hadn’t thought of about particular stories and the different lenses through which we filter them. I also think we all know the darker stories that are there as well, if not in the Diary entries themselves then in other parts of The Times and elsewhere. It’s just that one has to make an effort these days to find the more positive stories about human nature that are often right here. Some time ago The Times began to run a weekly column entitled “The Week in Good News,” but I think at some point it was quietly allowed to disappear. It provides such a lift to be able to find such stories in the Diary’s entries and comments each week, without, as you said, the section becoming a large pair of rose-colored glasses.
In that spirit, keep out of harm’s way Freddie.
Allen
17
Re "Dreamland": It's really not okay for adorable sleepy kids to put their street shoes on subway seats--where, later in the day, someone else will unwittingly place her or his derriere.
38
@Finistere
Or vice-versa...
11
@Finistere Hmm- I don't know anyone who unwittingly sits on a subway seat- always check but expect the worst!
20
@Finistere I understand your point—you’re even correct—but, seriously, that is probably the least of one’s worries when talking about NY subway seats. My sister and I often joke about how good our immune systems are—and we attribute it to growing up in New York.
76
Yes, New Yorkers are kind, we just pretend we are not. After all, we are all in this together (the Sandy story) and we depend on each other to keep things going.
65
Jordan,
You captured with such eloquence, the truly authentic kindness that IS New York City. As a native New Yorker (I now live in the Boston area), I was brought to tears reading your words. Yes, New Yorkers can be overly direct, and even harsh at times in their delivery, yet they look out for one another, and are rarely fake or saccharine. Thank you for bringing me back to my roots and for appreciating what is at the core of being a New Yorker.
116
Dear Suzanne,
I cannot remember but I think it was Garry Moore who in the late fifties and early sixties would end his TV variety show (which gave Carol Burnett her start and helped many others) by saying “Be kind to each other out there.” Good advice then—whoever said it—-and good advice now.
I hope you get down from Boston from time to time to water your roots in the city we both grew up in. Even with all the problems with the subway system there isn’t (I don’t think) a New York City song comparable to the one featuring a man named Charlie on a tragic and fateful day . . . .
Stay well Suzanne,
Allen
59
@Allen J. Share, you outclassed me with your kindness TV show reference. My mind went to the Simpsons Streetcar musical and and "You can always depend on the kindness of strangers," and this all-time fun Channel 13 memory.
"Be Kind to the Letter S" (from The Electric Company)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__NBsk9EooE
The silliness about kindness doesn't make the bad stuff disappear, but as in the show "Moulin Rouge," the mood lift helps to deal with the bad stuff better. And only then can we be useful in trying to help the world reach a day with less of the bad stuff.
32
Dear Freddie,
I do not believe anyone could outclass you Freddie. And I agree with you about the importance of humor and maintaining a sense of humor.
I have to confess however that the only “Moulin Rouge” I know is the brilliant 1952 film I saw when I was seven about the life of artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, with a performance by Jose Ferrer so powerful that it has stayed with me all these years.
Stay well Freddie.
Allen
27
If the kindness of strangers in New York City is still a well-kept secret in some parts of the country, the Metro Diary writers today let that secret out convincingly with these lovely stories.
161
Three valentines to the city. Beautiful.
89
Dear Jordan,
Your lyrical ode to the kindnesses New Yorkers bestow upon others—so often unasked for and so freely extended—evokes so many Diary entries over the years whose central message is precisely the one you highlight as reflective of the very essence of the city. Jamie Roth in her reflection today of the sweetness extended to her daughter on the subway by a fellow rider provides another lovely example of that simple kindness freely extended.
Your entry itself is a parting gesture of kindness as you and your wife head west and an invitation to all of us to be kind to each other.
I can only wish you many years of love and happiness and good health and thank you for so beautifully putting into words what makes so many of us love this very special place on earth and always think of it as home. I hope you will experience much kindness in your life.
Be well and happy Jordan.
Allen
162