If you’re the type who enjoys hating on immigrants, telling people, “Go back home!” or threatening to call immigration on somebody, well, a word to the wise. Whilst in New York City, best keep those thoughts to yourself, ’cause now it’s illegal to speak them.
If you really can’t stop yourself from hating immigrants out loud, there’s a remedy for that: be prepared to pay the city a fine of up to $250,000 smackeroonies.
Yesterday somebody mentioned what life looks like to New Yorkers and I realized … so much time has passed since Saul Steinberg drew the famous New York cover showing what the world looks like for New Yorkers – with Jersey a slender line across the Hudson with Japan and China just blips in the far distance … that my 21 year old son may have not ever seen it. So I looked around, found the cover easily on the internet and sure enough, Ari had never seen it before. It’s a doozy, though, isn’t it?
The official name of the drawing is “View of the World from Ninth Avenue”. It was the 29 March 1976 cover of The New Yorker magazine. It is an image I often mention when trying to explain to people how myopic the view of New Yorkers actually is.
Enjoy.
