Here is New York by E.B. White
Style, Truth, Prescience
On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the
gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. So begins E.B. Whites classic
meditation on that noisiest, most public of American cities. Written during
the summer of 1948, well after the author and editor had taken up
permanent residence in Maine, Here Is New York is a fond glance back at
the city of his youth, when White was one of the young worshipful
beginners who give New York its passionate character. Its also a tribute to
the sheer implausibility of the place--the tangled infrastructure, the
teeming humanity, the dearth of air and light. Much has changed since
White wrote this essay, yet in a city both changeless and changing there
are things here that will doubtless ring equally true 100 years from now.
To wit, New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and
convenience--if they did they would live elsewhere. Anyone whos ever
cherished his essays--or even Charlottes Web--knows that White is the
most elegant of all possible stylists. Theres not a sentence here that does
not make itself felt right down to the readers very bones. What would the

author make of Giulianis New York? Or of Times Square, Disney-style? Its
hard to say for sure. But not even Planet Hollywood could ruin Whites
abiding sense of wonder: The city is like poetry: it compresses all life ...
into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal
engines. This lovely new edition marks the 100th anniversary of E.B.
Whites birth--cause for celebration indeed. --Mary Park
Personal Review: Here is New York by E.B. White
HERE IS NEW YORK is a truly spectacular 1948 essay that originally
appeared in Holiday magazine. Written by E.B. White and named one of
the ten best books ever written about New York, this is a quick read that
will leave you years later savoring White's timeless observations.
Writing in a hotel room during a sweltering heat wave, White takes the
reader through the essence of New York City and its eight million
inhabitants who he notes roughly fall into three groups: the natives, the
commuters and the transplants.
Warning that "no one should come to New York unless he is willing to be
lucky," White lovingly explains how the city is more a collection of
thousands of small neighborhoods that implausibly operate independently
of each other, completely oblivious to what is occurring only a few blocks
away.
Though it was written almost 60 years ago, HERE IS NEW YORK is just as
accurate today as the moment it was written. Yes, the city has changed
but the basic structure of life in New York remains the same.
Overall HERE IS NEW YORK is a very positive book that will leave
everyone feeling welcome and needed in America's biggest city. But eerily
the book presciently warns that "a single flight of planes no bigger than a
wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers,
crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal passages,
cremate the millions."
Though it was tough to read that passage right after 9/11 as I did, I still
whole heartedly recommend HERE IS NEW YORK to anyone who lives in
New York, commutes to and from there, or has just moved there and is
now, as White observed, generating "enough heat and light to dwarf the
Consolidated Edison Company."
- Regina McMenamin
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