Archibald Motley’s “Getting Religion”

In NYC we all live on top of each other.

Crying kids, yelling neighbors, loud parties, sex, you hear it all. In my little coffin of a room I have neighbors above, below, and beside. Walking up the stairs to my apartment, I pass more neighbors than used to live in my South Dakota development composed of two acre lots. In NYC your personal space, your personal life, is separated from others by thin walls.

You run into people on staircases. Smile, nod, get out of the way. It’s polite but curt. NYCers have a reputation for being brash and unfriendly, and that’s partially true. We got places to go, things to do, and whereas the rest of the country gets from place to place hidden in their cars, we walk the streets exposed to the weather and the smells and when we bump into someone its flesh and blood and not an exchange of insurance information. Further, while you can hide from the world in your car when you’ve had a bad day, in NYC it’s all on the street. So yeah, we’re all on edge a bit more, but maybe that’s just perception because there is nowhere to hide. But we’re friendly, too, and when parties collide on the roof (the night of the lunar eclipse was special, people playing music and dancing around, and burning lists of past pains in pagan revelry) we enjoy meeting a neighbor or a stranger. Not friends, but friendly. And in a pinch we help each other out (forgotten keys, package pick up, feeding the cat).

It’s in moments of conflict, though, that neighbors begin exchanging notes and because the walls are thin, everyone knows when something is going down. In this way it’s easier to be a good neighbor in NYC. Continue reading →