Many years after I first read this essay my GR friend Left Coast Justin offered up a compelling review for White's Writings From the New Yorker and I was inspired to revisit. Some books that were life-changing for me when I was young do not appeal to me at all now. I travelled for two years of my life inspired in part by On the Road. When I tried rereading On the Road in my 40's I hated it, finding Kerouac both a bad writer and a flaming narcissist, but at 16 he planted in me a thirst to see the world riding alongside the person I loved with no money and no plans. and I am forever grateful to that bad boy.

White did not inspire me to want to move to NYC, visiting here did that. My mother says that after my first visit at the age of 3 I told anyone who asked that when I grew up I was going to be a New Yorker. That desire grew with every visit from forays to FAO Schwarz and Serendipity when I was 5, to Broadway shows and tea at the Plaza when I was 10, to dancing at Area and Danceteria with a fake ID and crashing in Avenue C squats when I was 17, to pretending to be cool at parties in Tribeca lofts and knowing the name of every bartender at Beirut when I was 23, to dinners at Daniel and Le Bernardin and arguments with writers that were featured in well-known publications at 30. But this book did have an impact. I first read this in a Norton's Anthology for a lit class my sophomore year of college, and it moved my filmy dreams of moving to the city to firm intent and then to positive action. And all these years later, after several readings, it is still the best explanation I have read of what makes New York New York and for why I love it with such passion. To be sure many of the particulars of this essay are dated, but it still explains why New York is the only place for some people, and as one of those people, one who has lived many other places but has never felt at home anywhere else, I find such joy in these pages. I reread this yesterday in part on an unpleasantly fragrant F-train, in part as I waited for a friend to meet me to see a gorgeous chamber music performance, in part as I sat on the 6-train full from too much Malaysian food and on my way to meet other friends at a jazz club uptown and it was perfect -- this is the only big warm hug I ever want to feel at midnight on the 6. ( )

Have 2 copies: 1 is 1949 first edition; 1999 edition

It’s really a nostalgic trip to see New York as E. B. White did. First published in 1948, this essay speaks of White’s love for New York, both the pretty sights and not so pretty aspects. The excitement of the city, glorious in its imperfections, shines through the pages. Clearly, in White’s eyes, it is a wondrous town. His descriptions paint pictures in the mind, and his prediction of airplanes wreaking havoc on tall skyscrapers chills the soul. Especially enjoyable are the two poems that end his essay. Succinct and to the point. ( )

Here is a delightful, insightful, almost prophetic lengthy essay written in 1948 or '49 about the ever-changing, ever-fascinating city that never sleeps. Whole paragraphs could be lifted out, printed in 2010, and accepted as having been written last week. Only the statistics date it.

ETA: Roger Angell, E. B. White's stepson, wrote the introduction to my 1999 edition. He died at the age of 101, in 2022. I re-read the whole thing in May of 2022, and it still captures the essence of the city for me. ( )

Tradução Ruy Castro