city of dreams

Author Tom Wolfe may be a self-important conservative blowhard (not that I've read any of his novels, I just know him by reputation), but in today's New York Times he offers a very incisive, accurate accessment of the strange foundations of New York City at the dawn of the 21st Century (one that seems in line with things that I often try to say here, but never quite can). Since the article is weirdly clumped in with others on the Times' website (when you check the link, be sure to advance to the next page to read the whole thing), I'm going to cite the most pertinent passages below:

None of Gothamland's stocks in trade are tangible. Rather, all offer the sheer excitement, even euphoria, of being ... "where things are happening."

Humanity comes to New York not to buy clothes but, rather ... Fashion ...not to see musicals and plays but to experience "Broadway," which resembles the turn-of-the-19th-century trolley town one finds himself in upon entering Disneyland in California. If the traffic on Broadway should ever lack congestion, if the people ever stop spilling over the sidewalks and out into the street, if they ever stop hyperventilating in a struggle to get to the will-call window before the curtain goes up, the producers and theater owners should hire hordes of the city's unemployed actors to serve as extras and recreate it all...

After all, what does our city now live on? Why, something about as solid as a sharp intake of breath: the world's impression that Gothamland and only Gothamland ...is where things are happening.