IN THE EARLY 20^th Century, New York — which had by now attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Europe and Russia fleeing disrupted traditional lifestyles and social upheavals caused by the industrial revolution and class conflicts — lacked proper housing to accommodate multitudes of the poor, who were not only foreigners but Americans from other States as well seeking to be part of the idealistic adventure of New York.

If anyone thinks that the tenement slums of today’s Latin America, Asia, Africa, even the Caribbean hold a monopoly on poverty and stagnation, they should research the example of New York City in the last decades of the 19^th Century and the first decades of the 20^th, when thousands lived in wooden shacks no better than fowl pens, and raw sewage flowed down streets in certain sections of the city.

How New York City changed this became a famous example of the power of individuals as conscientious citizens, in contrast to opportunistic followers looking to political leaders for ideals they should put into practise themselves.

It took the idealistic response of a few dedicated medical professionals, helped by an equally idealistic group of New York labourers armed with brooms, shovels, lime and disinfectants, to begin a thorough, meticulous, daily cleanup, which awakened the city’s population to a general pride in their environment that would enhance New York in the eyes of the world and the rest of America.

This sort of nonpartisan social behaviour by early New Yorkers helped promote optimism in the city. New York’s economic foundation lay in its history as a distribution centre more than a production centre, except in mechanical and artistic products, and numerous professional services; also as the speculative gambling centre, trading shares on almost all of America’s businesses in the stock market index, and a banking capital.

New York City’s strategic position as an Atlantic port city meant that major American exports left by its docks for the world, and imports arrived there as well. This mercantile transaction meant that the governing powers of the city state received brisk business via daily legal transactions and fair or reasonable taxes. We can consider this transformation as another example for a port city like Guyana’s Georgetown on the Demerara River. Though Demerara, in the then British Guiana, developed the reputation for having the best, the most spacious, long, and durable docks (made from the famous local greenheart timber) in the entire Caribbean region, its use was limited to the exportation of local plantation products like sugar and rice, even timber, as well as importations.

But British Guiana, deliberately cut off, as an Anglo colony, from the rest of the South American continent by its lack of roads to Brazil and the rest of the continent, never achieved its full potential as a port city, but rather remained in limbo and disuse.

Today, 45years after Independence, Demerara, with its strategic oceanic position, facing the Caribbean, North America, even Mediterranean Europe, has come to recognise its natural role as the shortest route for Latin American nations to distribute their exports and receive foreign imports, via the new Guyana-Brazil highway connecting the Guyanese capital and port city with Latin America to its South.

Unlike British Guiana’s mid-19^th Century history of a little immigration from Portugal, Malta, and various European countries, New York, by contrast, received an endless flow of early immigration from Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, etc.

However, in comparison to British Guiana, such immigrants had no omnipotent colonial power breathing down their necks and limiting their growth. Thousands of new immigrants to New York remained in sprawling areas adjacent to antique ones such as Harlem, named after Holland’s famous professional old city, which, in America, came to be associated with the best of New York’s Afro-American culture, whose creative ‘mixed-bloods’ were often descendants of the original 17^th Century Dutch settlers of New York City when it was still called New Amsterdam.

In fact, Afro-American Harlem later came to share its space with the influx of Puerto Ricans, Cubans etc, resulting in the name Spanish Harlem being given to a section of old Harlem.

The example of New York City assumed primary importance to the rest of the Americas because it proved the practical benefits of progressive cities built on an educated interpretation of creative liberty. It is not the surrounding districts of New York City, like Queens, the Bronx, even Brooklyn, which led to the development of the city, but the city itself which led to the expansive growth of those outlying districts.

Today, citizens of these areas drive or take various buses connecting with the ‘E’ or ‘F’ trains into the city’s core, because that is where a majority of the jobs, including various cultural and commercial professions, exist. The importance and respect paid to New York City by its outlying citizens is proven by the popularity of huge mirrors with stenciled glittering outlines of the bridges and skyline of New York City adorning the walls of many houses and coop apartments in Queens, Brooklyn, Newark etc, even though such houses and apartments are not in New York City, but quite far from it.

New York elevated cultural aspects of its diverse immigrant population, such as its cuisine, into the forefront of practical human necessity. Whole streets and areas of the city became lined with restaurants, diners, and cafes specialising in types of food related to Italian, Greek, Dutch, Jewish, Afro-American, Polish, Hungarian, Chinese, Japanese, Irish, French, East Indian, Caribbean, and Latin American lifestyles.

The salami sandwich, pizza, pastrami on rye, the cheese sandwich, bagels, French fries, sweet Hungarian pastries, exotic coffees, goulash soup, chowmein, curries, etc, became a general cuisine, satisfying people on-the-move who were making business deals, launching new professional careers, etc.

The integration of necessary rapid and easy food availability and consumption, along with professional and business pursuits, became a smooth coordination, driving New York City’s energy into progress.

New American-style fast-foods like the hot dog, hamburgers, steak, bacon and egg sandwiches emerged. The Arts began to play a major part in this coordination between and exciting New York ambitious lif
estyle, where the street-level below towering offices provided diverse restaurants, snack bars, cafes etc, open around-the-clock for people on-the-go and serving those who remained working late voluntarily or on shift, thus pushing development faster in the city.

Countless creative films began to promote this ambitious lifestyle by applying touches of glamour and pleasure to its portrayals of New York City life, providing scenes which demonstrated the functional pleasure of this lifestyle. In 1947, ‘HUMORESQUE’, a stunning masterpiece film directed by Jean Negulesco and starring John Garfield, the great New York actor, as the determined orchestral concert violinist on the rise in New York City, shows short rapid scenes of Garfield eating at diner counters, hailing cabs, practising his art in neighbour-hoods, etc, in a manner which relates New York City’s collective ambitious energy with achieving success.

The impressive structures of New York City are almost a necessity when one considers the isolated land masses which constitute sections of the city, like Manhattan Island and Brooklyn. However, New York City’s planners understood that if bridges across the East River are necessary to connect parts of New York, one might as well build impressive ones, paint them in attractive colours, like matte metallic beige, and at night illuminate them with strung lights which enhance the entire attractiveness of the city’s landscape.

Regardless of the necessity and importance of generating electricity and energy, New York City’s planners know the importance of well-constructed outward beautification, as well as contemplative and imaginative inward pleasure via productive and uplifting cultural industries. The continued insistence and proliferation of such values certainly came to influence people of wealth, talent, and ambition from around the world to come to New York City to work and live.

This ability to attach importance to outward civic order and beautification, combined with a proliferation of contemplative and imaginative cultural values, can transform any city and nation into the same quality of attractiveness as New York City.

What can never be overlooked or underestimated is the colossal role, perhaps in New York more than any other American city, which creative films about New York and filmed in New York, played in depicting and popularising the city to people around the world.

Book publishing in New York City certainly came first, but creative films visually popularized numerous streets, avenues, and areas of New York City, even when being critical. These well-known Hollywood films, which often named themselves after areas in New York City, brought both an interest in what already existed there, as well as influenced such areas and their citizens to look their best, and act their best, since people looked up to New York, and wanted to experience locations they had heard of.

It is difficult to say whether the films were made because of the various exciting professional lifestyles etc, already in these areas, or whether it is the films themselves which influenced such valuable city developments.

No doubt, both points are true. Significantly, the shift from making films in artificial Hollywood studios to real New York locations occurred because it was a creative experiment which proved both cheaper and necessary in the economic post-war crunch.

The first New York film of this nature was 20^th Century Fox’s ‘HOUSE ON 92^nd STREET’ of 1945.

Some of the best of many films which used real New York City locations, and glamorized the city were: ‘MIRACLE ON 34^th STREET’ (1947); ‘FIFTH AVENUE GIRL’ (1939); ‘NEW YORK TOWN’ (1941); ‘THE HUCKSTERS’ (1947); ‘HUMORESQUE’ (1947); ‘TARZAN’S NEW YORK ADVENTURE’ (1942); ‘WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS’ (1950); ‘THE TENDER TRAP’ (1955); ‘ARTISTS AND MODELS’ (1955); ‘SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS’ (1957); ‘THE WRONG MAN’ (1956); ‘BUTTERFIELD 8’ (1960); ‘PUTNEY SWOPE’ (1960); ‘MADISON AVENUE’ (1962); ‘THE APARTMENT’ (1960); ‘BREAKFAST AT TIFFANYS’ (1961); ‘ WEST SIDE STORY’ (1961); ‘SUNDAYS IN NEW YORK’ (1964); and ‘KRAMER VERSUS KRAMER’ (1979).

More outstanding recent films based in New York City are Woody Allen’s ‘MANHATTAN’, Spike Lee’s ‘MO BETTER BLUES’, and the brilliant short-story collection, ‘NEW YORK STORIES’, as well as ‘WALL STREET’ and ‘BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY’.

What the example of New York City shows us is that the growth of this city has more to do with the evolution of the 18^th Century American Revolution, which has resulted in a more peaceful contemporary method of social change, based on the accumulation and communication of educational and cultural values rooted in liberty, which was nurtured in New York City, and exists as a successful way of life for others to comprehend and utilize.