Books, Arts & Manners: The Concept of New York

THIS column, here in its first installment, is called “City Desk,” partly for the “stop the presses” flavor of the phrase, although by now this is a very old homage. Fifty years ago, Priscilla Buckley had a drunken scamp of a colleague who would run through the lobby of the Daily News building, past the huge sunken globe, hollering “Scoop! Scoop!” Another scamp followed, a moment later, yelling “Kill that story!” A joke, even then. But mainly “City Desk” refers to my desk, a desk in a city—and not just any city. New York has been The City for about a century now.

Recently New York commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Greater New York, whereby Manhattan acquired Brooklyn and the other jewels in its crown. As if to celebrate, a 101-year-old water main ruptured, leaving a thirtyfoot crater in the middle of Fifth Avenue. A gas main joined in, sending up a two-story plume of fire. Ultimately, the political benchmark is as trivial as the explosion turned out to be. New York became The City not because of a legislative real-estate grab, but because it was already coming to incarnate what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “metropolitan urbanity.” Urban and urbane are linguistically related words, and sometimes city dwelling and “the bright, gay vigorous elements” (Fitzgerald again) are related things, so that people imagine the latter when they think of the former.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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THIS column, here in its first installment, is called “City Desk,” partly for the “stop the presses” flavor of the phrase, although by now this is a very old homage. Fifty years ago, Priscilla Buckley had a drunken scamp of a colleague who would run through the lobby of the Daily News building, past the huge sunken globe, hollering “Scoop! Scoop!” Another scamp followed, a moment later, yelling “Kill that story!” A joke, even then. But mainly “City Desk” refers to my desk, a desk in a city—and not just any city. New York has been The City for about a century now.

Recently New York commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Greater New York, whereby Manhattan acquired Brooklyn and the other jewels in its crown. As if to celebrate, a 101-year-old water main ruptured, leaving a thirtyfoot crater in the middle of Fifth Avenue. A gas main joined in, sending up a two-story plume of fire. Ultimately, the political benchmark is as trivial as the explosion turned out to be. New York became The City not because of a legislative real-estate grab, but because it was already coming to incarnate what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “metropolitan urbanity.” Urban and urbane are linguistically related words, and sometimes city dwelling and “the bright, gay vigorous elements” (Fitzgerald again) are related things, so that people imagine the latter when they think of the former.