New York is one of the most chameleonic cities in the world, but how to deal with it the first time? How to deal with the second as well? New York is always different and always the same, New York is love at first sight.
The journalist Beppe Severgnini writes "You don't go to America, you go back to America, even the first time!"
When you land at the JFK you don't understand where it is Manhattan.
But you can be sure it's down there somewhere.
And then you get caught in a slight frenzy… You can't wait to get out of the airport.
But, it is not such an immediate mechanism.
Customs.
Ritual questions.
Baggage claim.
Delivery of documents.
Last check.
Then one tide of yellow taxis waiting for you.
And even as you begin to walk the streets you don't know where Manhattan is.
At a certain point, however, you glimpse some familiar silhouettes, you pass under a long tunnel and those silhouettes, when the light returns, have become skyscrapers from which you are literally submerged.
View skyscrapers of all shapes and bills and you no longer know which to lay your eyes on.
It seemed to me to be entering a movie: chaos, dozens of yellow taxis, lights, colors.
A scene seen many times on the screen, so far from our reality and yet so familiar.
You don't feel foreign in New York: most of the things we use in everyday life pass through here. Others who are here have yet to arrive.
Many images captured by the eye and passed through the heart to turn them into emotions… And between the eye and the heart a camera, a precious tool, which stops those images to give tomorrow the possibility of reliving, reviewing them, those emotions and sharing them.
The gold color of the prometheus of Rockefeller Center, the yellow of taxis, the green of Battery Park, the black of the uniforms of the policemen, the blue of the sky, the blue of the sea of the bay, the silver gray of the concrete giants, the red, which from the advertising signs, joins the blue and the white stars and stripes. And then, millions of faces, mixed with races and expressions, smiles and sadness, joy of life and anguish.
Being here, e how to feel at the center of the world!
One of the ways to discover the city is to do it from south to north.
A downtown history pursues itself, here we go from ground zero and from those new places created in the hole left by history, to Wall Strett, at the Stock Exchange, at museum of the indians, to the big bull, until you get to Buttery Park where there is another piece of the World Trade Center, a large sphere miraculously saved from under the rubble, and a little further on you can see the bay, lady liberty and Ellis Island.
The small park by the sea, with the cannon fort and the hot dog kiosk form the link between Manhattan and the other islands. The ferry, slow and loaded, it transports hordes of tourists to the statue of liberty that can be seen well even from a distance without facing the heat and the people crowded in a few hundred meters at the base of the austere lady's pedestal. Even from the ferry boat it has a charm all its own, it indicates a symbol and a value that every American and every man and woman in the world cannot ignore.
Ellis island instead it speaks of the history of America as a promised land and of Italy made up of immigrants seeking their fortune in the new world. Maybe even in my family there is the "aunt of America", maybe my father's surname is in the archives of the island, maybe my trip is a different trip from the one of survival, maybe I too my way I am an emigrant, but Ellis Island moved me and made me reflect on the value of being at home in every place and feeling at home in a few places.
Back in Manathann, the downtown tour continues with a walk along the Pier up to the number 17 where ancient sailing ships, which break the rhythm of large skyscrapers, frame a quay from other times and a large shopping center where you can find all sorts of food, from Mexican to Chinese, from Italian to Japponese and from where you can admire dazzled the river, the Brooklyn Bridge and Dumbo. And from there on foot or by metro you can, after a short break at the sunset, plunge back into the frenetic pace of that city that truly never sleeps.
Side note: New York has a thousand faces and those who give more to think about are those not seen in the show. Those of the everyday city and not extraordinary. Those of obese African-Americans, of disheveled and slightly unkempt girls, of street sweepers or tramps, of workers or shop assistants. Those of those who live or survive in New York, of those who do not have only the luxury or a pair of heel 12, of those who recharge the subway card and get their hands dirty and not only of those who run in financial offices, large boutiques and halls on limousines.
