A New New Yorker's First Year

By Dianne Harms,
WFUV Membership Director

"Culture shock!" is the response I get from New Yorkers when I tell them I moved here from Iowa at the age of 46. While it's true that I'm shocked by the horrendous drivers on the streets of Manhattan, the Bronx, Jersey, and yes, even Westchester, there have been few things about culture in New York that have truly astonished me, other than its sheer density. You can't "swing a dead cat", as they say back home (New Yorkers - substitute "rat") without hitting culture. It's a hardcover city in a land of paperbacks.

Many New Yorkers have never lived elsewhere, and so don't understand how New York culture spills out everywhere. In movies: from Gangs of New York (or any Scorsese film) to Escape from New York to Manhattan - OK, Woody Allen's entire body of work. Music: Jazz history and the Harlem Renaissance. Art: On loan from MOMA, The Guggenheim. Theater: Traveling productions of West Side Story, Cats, and Rent. Television: That Girl, Sex and the City, Friends, King of Queens, CBS Sunday Morning - and on and on. News: Walter Cronkite wasn't in a studio in Sioux City, and neither is Katie Couric. It's New York's local news, giving the heartland a window to Rockefeller Center, live, every morning; to the Macy's parade route, every Thanksgiving. And literature? Amazon.com lists nearly 84,000 titles with New York as the subject.

What does a New Yorker know about Iowa? Maybe he's seen the 1989 film Field of Dreams, with Kevin Costner. Or that quaint painting American Gothic, by Iowa native Grant Wood. Don't forget the great American musical The Music Man, by Meredith Willson, a Mason City, Iowa native. Perhaps you've heard of the internationally renowned Iowa Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, Iowa. Frank Conroy, a native New Yorker, was its director for years. That's about the size of it.

I believe that a New Yorker moving to Iowa would experience culture shock to a much greater degree than an Iowan who moves here. Of course, you've just asked yourself "Why would I do that? Move to Iowa?" I don't have a ready answer to that question. Our ancestors all came through Ellis Island, it's true that we share that commonality. There were few immigrants brave enough to venture a thousand miles west, though, and that's still an imbalance; the largest town in Iowa is the capital of the state, Des Moines, with a population of less than 500,000. The Bronx alone has 1.4 million people. The Olive Garden is considered a good Italian restaurant in the Midwest; there's amazing Italian cuisine, literally on every corner in New York City. Merle Haggard came to the Great Jones County Fair in Monticello, Iowa three years ago and filled the place - one show, one night. He and Bob Dylan packed the Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side five nights in a row this spring. There are more people here, and consequently, more choices - more culture. Still, I sometimes long for the simplicity of life in Iowa, a place you can really get your arms around.

I live here now, a New Yorker by choice, and I love it - but have a lot to learn. To that end, I've put together my summer reading list - evidence of my commitment to bringing myself up to speed on all that is New York. It's not comprehensive, and I'd break the bank if I purchased all of the titles. Some I own; I'll borrow the rest with my Brooklyn Public Library Card.

My nonfiction list:

New York Stories: The Best of the City Section of the New York Times, Constance Rosenblum (Editor)

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City, Jonathan Mahler

The Sky's the Limit: Passion & Property in Manhattan, Steven Gaines

The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life, by Fred Siegel

No Lights, No Sirens: The Corruption and Redemption of an Inner City Cop, Robert Cea

102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, Jim Dwyer & Kevin Flynn

Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York, Kenneth D. Ackerman

Life at the Dakota: New York's Most Unusual Address, Stephen Birmingham

The Long Island Sound: A History of Its People, Places and Environment, Marilyn E. Weigold

Downtown: My Manhattan, Pete Hamill

As for fiction:

Bergdorf Blondes, Plum Sykes

The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

Sex in the City, Candace Bushnell

Manhattan Nocturne, Colin Harrison

For good measure, I'll reread the books that first introduced me to New York: The poignant classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and the simply fantastic children's book The House on East 88th Street, by Bernard Waber, (featuring Lyle the Crocodile!) - both of which I own - in hardcover, no less.