I was born in New York City but by no means do I consider myself a city kid, if anything I would call myself a 9/11 baby. My family was transplanted to the easternmost point of Long Island after the attack on the World Trade Towers, only 5 days before my first birthday. I grew up in a small seasonal beach town on Long Island, a two hour drive from the city.
Battery Park 1974 Winter Garden Atrium Battery Park Promenade
Before 9/11 we lived in Battery Park City, a planned community along Manhattan's southwestern tip. Earth dug up to build the World Trade Center was dumped into the Hudson in the late 1960s and two decades later Battery Park developed as a balance of residential and commercial spaces. I feel that Battery Park provides a smaller community within the big city.
Our neighborhood was perfect for adventurous children, we had a promenade that ran along the River scattered with green spaces, permanent cement ping pong tables, and sculpture gardens . Around the corner from our apartment was “The Winter Garden'' an indoor commercial atrium housing rows of full sized palm trees. This space created an even smaller microcosm within the city. I might even call it an oasis.
My family would return to the city regularly for the first 5 years of my life. We would spend our weekends visiting museums such as the Met and the Natural History Museum. When we were not in museums we were walking. A lot. I would turn our journeys across the city into a race, running from corner to corner on every city block, waiting for my family to catch up so we could all cross the street together. I am told I could run a whole 4 miles home which is practically a mini marathon for my toddler sized legs. All that running seems worlds away from my home on Long Island where I live a mere 2 miles from my school but I would have never thought to walk.
Still today pieces of the city mostly smells, spark flashbacks to my childhood. I am comforted by catching a whiff of the rotting garbage and extensive tunnels below as you walk over a subway grate. I have come to discover only my sister and I have such a fond attachment to this smell, and my friends who live in NYC do not share this sentiment. It is not just subway grates, it is the smell of rain on the pavement, the old leather inside a taxi cab, and the sea spray off the Hudson River as you walk along the promenade. Growing up outside the city, I have become accustomed to my small town. I find the city overwhelming at times, but the smaller community feel that Battery Park City creates still seems manageable, or maybe that it is just nostalgia speaking.
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