The Three New Yorks
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Pre-reading
As you prepare to read White’s essay, take a
few minutes to think about the place where
you live or, if you have lived in several
locations, the place that you know best. What
is the place like? Are there different classes of
people in this place or different parts with
specific features or functions? How would you
divide the place in terms of people, sections,
and functions?
In- reading
Manhattan (Par. 2): location
Bowery (par. 2): encyclopedia article about
Bowery.
“They tend their furnaces…winter nights.”
(par. 2): to understand this sentence, you’ve
got to know the area “Bowery” in Manhattan.
This sentence means that the commuters just
come and go in New York, but they do not
know how the Bowery “Bums" (alcoholics and
homeless) live in in the same city where they
work.
Building vocabulary
1. Par. 2: Mamaroneck (a town in
Westchester County, north of New York City);
Little Neck (a town in the borough of Queens,
just across the border from Nassau County,
Long Island); Teaneck (a town across the
Hudson River in Essex County, New Jersey);
Belvedere Tower in the Park (a stone
monument in Manhattan’s Central Park);
Manhattan (the central borough with the
greatest population and the theater, business,
and artists’ districts; the Island (Long Island);
Building vocabulary
The Public Library (the 42nd street branch of
the New York Public Library—the main
branch); Westchester (a county county north
of New York City); The Bowery (a section in
downtown Manhattan inhabited by many
derelicts); the financial district (Wall Street,
downtown, where the banking and stock
exchange offices are located); Rockefeller
Centre (buildings, gardens, and skating rink
in midtown); Governor’s Island (off
Manhattan which houses forts);
Building vocabulary
East River (the eastern border of
Nanhattan and Long Island).
Par. 3: Irving Berlin (song composer);
Cherry street in the Lower East Side (a
section of downtown Manhattan once
inhabited primarily by European Jewish
immigrants).
Building vocabulary
2. A. violently disturbed state
B. unavoidable
C. search
D. nervous
E. unequalled
F. necessary
G. Stuck at one’s desk
H. Sleepy
I. Lavish
J. crafty
Understanding the writer’s ideas
1. The New Yorks of (a) the man or
woman born there; (b0 the commuter;
© the person born elsewhere who
comes to New York in quest of
something.
2. (a) native; (b) commuter; © settler.
Understanding the writer’s ideas
3. In quest of something so that New
York becomes a goal. The Italian
immigrant farmer who establishes a
grocery in a slum; the small town
Mississippi girl who wants to escape her
neighbor’s constant scrutiny; the midwestern boy who wants nothing less
than to be a New York writer
Understanding the writer’s ideas
4. Natives: solidity and continuity;
commuters: tidal restlessness; settler:
nervous disposition, creativity,
achievements
5. The fact that they are “dead” places.
The second sentence of par. 2 describes
them as having “no essential vitality of
its own.”
Understanding the writer’s ideas
6. The joys of Central Park; waking to
its morning or going to sleep in its
nighttmies; the oaken silence of the
Public Library; the furnaces of the
Bowery; the extravagance of Rockefeller
Center; sighting Governor’s Island. To
play bridge while his train is buried
beneath the East River.
Understanding the writer’s ideas
7. In a sense, yes. The statistics are
comprised of daily riders, many of whom are
the commuters who ride the same routes
over and over again.
8. He means that the creative opportunities
are such that the residents can “travel farther”
in terms of personal development of a skill or
inclination.
Understanding the writer’s ideas
9. The three- or for-block area in
midtown Manhattan where the music
publishing business is located, hence
the area from which most songs used to
derive
Understanding the Writer’s Techniques
1. “There are roughly three New Yorks.”—the
first sentence. Ironically, White devotes most
of the description to the commuter
classification—the one of which he thinks the
least.
2. Classification is accomplished on the basis
of the three types of inhabitants of New York.
White simply uses the indicator words first,
second, and third. These words, in their
simplicity and directness, are contrasted to
the metaphoric descriptions of the sentences
they initiate.
Understanding the Writer’s Techniques
3. Among others: He attributes New
York’s “high-stung disposition, its
poetical deportment, its dedication to
the arts, and its incomparable
achievements” to the commuters in the
city; he attributes its “passion” to the
settlers.
Understanding the Writer’s Techniques
5. In par. 2, he illustrates three types of
settlers; in par. 3, white illustrates what
commuters miss out on because they
run in and out of the city.
6. White uses negation to show what
the commuter does not discover about
the city.
7. He is enamored of the city.
Understanding the Writer’s Techniques
8. Metaphor makes this less guidebook or
treatise, more a personal, vibrant vision.
A. taken in and excreted by parasites
B. the strangest type
C. just a stopping over place (carries through
on the “queer bird” metaphor)
D. pleasantly walking around the grass
E. He has profited from it without ever taking
the time to know it.
F. a quiet, wood-paneled room
Understanding the Writer’s Techniques
The last clause: “but it was like going
three times around the world.”
Understanding the Writer’s Techniques
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