My thanks for those kind New Yorkers

New York, New York

Part One

My thanks for those kind New Yorkers

Written by Dan McDonald

 

Photograph of Manhattan across the East River taken from Brooklyn Heights (December 3, 2014)

 

            I spent a few days in New York City. My time there has inspired me to begin writing a few blogs about my experiences and the resulting thoughts that came to mind because of New York, New York. In this first blog in the series I want to express my thanks for those kind New Yorkers who so often helped me when I felt a need for directions or for assurances in the directions I was following.

            It is a common conception for New Yorkers to be thought of as cold, rude, distant and aloof. I do think a lot of them look directly ahead or even at the ground in front of them and seldom pay a passerby even the hint of a glance. But if how someone greets you as a stranger when walking by them on a sidewalk is how you judge a city’s people for being kind – New Yorkers may fail your test. But that seems to me a false test.

            I grew up in a rural area. If you drove the back roads, especially those ones that were gravel that few people traveled, a lot of the locals would wave at you whether you were a local or a stranger. It was a way of showing respect. You respected a person by showing them that you were aware of their presence. But maybe in a city like New York, respect is shown in a very different way, almost a completely opposite manner. Manhattan has a population of some 69,000 people per square mile. A lot of New Yorkers must leave their homes to take a walk to find relief from stress, or a chance to think to themselves. In a city with so many people a walk is one of the ways to momentarily get away from it or to think it over. If as a New Yorker you had ever taken a walk to escape stress you would be more inclined to see someone walking along a street and show them the respect of letting them make their journey in their own little privacy zone. So New Yorkers tend to learn to show respect not by showing their awareness of another but by not invading their zone of privacy. Whereas my rural friends waved to show respect to a stranger, a New Yorker sees an invisible zone of privacy surrounding the person walking towards them.

            Kindness is neither a rural nor a city trait. It is one of those virtues that can be cultivated by someone created in God’s image. Different settings bring out differing ways of expressing kindness. I discovered the kindness of New Yorkers when I asked them for directions.

            The photograph I took at the top of this picture resulted from a lady helping me find the place in Brooklyn Heights where I took this photograph. Actually there were three or four other people who helped me find the place where I snapped the photograph. But the story of this lady seems extra special to me. I got off a subway train at a station near the place I wanted to find. The woman, watching over two energetic playing children, had gotten off the subway train I was on at the same station as I. She was trying to settle her boys down while she was the closest person to me for me to ask for directions. While her energetic children were playing, she tried to tell me the direction for me to take. She must have noticed the vacant look in my eyes. Eventually she said to me, “I am going that direction for a couple of more blocks. At that point it will be easier for me to show you how to go if you don’t mind walking with me.” It was already dark. I was a stranger. Yet she invited me to walk with her until she could better point out the way I needed to go. I was moved by her kindness and it was a pleasure to walk with her and her children. One of them was running after the other and didn’t notice a bit of a barrier and tripped over it and began crying. I got to tell them of how I had been taking a photograph and did exactly the same thing the day before. We reached the place where our paths parted as she pointed the way for me to go.

            I asked for directions also from a young man dressed in business clothes moving rather quickly with his face focused forward. He kept walking and I wasn’t surprised he paid no attention to me. But then he stopped as if something had pulled him out of his zone. He listened as I told him where I wanted to go, and explained that I thought I was going the right way, but wasn’t quite sure. He said no problem and confirmed with a refreshing of my directions the way I was to go. He seemed in a hurry, but still he had time to help a stranger, a tourist with directions.

            Later I received the opportunity to pass the kindness forward. A young lady asked me if I knew the way to a certain restaurant as her phone wasn’t working and she was to meet someone at the restaurant. I didn’t know the restaurant and after apologizing if she was bothering me she asked if I could look the restaurant up on my phone. I tried but I wasn’t too good at finding directions on the phone, so we agreed that it would probably work better if she looked the restaurant up on my phone. She was able to see the streets around the restaurant and was able to make her way. She apologized for bothering me and I found myself thinking that I had just gotten to help an attractive lady find her way in New York City and those are the sort of things old men dream of. So when someone says to me “Did you find New Yorkers rude?” I will be able to honestly answer that the ones I met were kind. Sometimes they were very kind. So I wanted my first blog about my time in New York City to be my giving thanks to those kind New Yorkers who so often pointed me in the right direction.