New York essay question
Choose
from one of the two questions below, and write a well-argued, evidence-backed,
thesis-driven essay. Do not use the first person narrative voice, and do not
restate the exact wording of the question as a way of filling space in the
opening paragraph. Do not retell the plots or waste space explaining what the
film was about, and so on. Use the paper to argue points, not remind the
reader what happened in the original text.
- In describing,
praising and critiquing New York and its people, each of the writers calls
into question the values that are expressed by New York as the ultimate
modern city. These values are aesthetic (concepts of art and beauty),
philosophical (should we, as urban-dwelling Americans, be adventurous,
spontaneous, conservative, wary, skeptical, competitive, and so on),
psychological (the changes in consciousness brought about by the new and
unfamiliar) political (changes in the nature of national identity or of
the social dynamic occasioned by new ideas about race, immigration and
gender) and social (interactions with colleagues, neighbors, loved ones
and strangers). Using our sources (New
York Revisited; Skyscrapers, Airplanes, and Airmindedness:
“The Necessary Angel”; Echoes of the Jazz Age; Catcher in the Rye; Bright Lights, Big City; The Death and
Life of Great American Cities, and The
Cruise), consider the conclusions reached by different authors about
these complex topics and advance an original argument which you explain,
defend and elaborate on continuously throughout the paper.
- One of the primary
topics of the texts by our authors is the power of illusions. James finds
New Yorkers (and by extension, Americans) captivated by the delirious
experience of the culture’s illusions about itself, and Fitzgerald
bookends James’s concerns with his elegy for the illusory promises of the
Jazz Age. Burns (in the documentary
film Cosmopolis: New York from
1919-1931) portrays ordinary Americans enthralled by illusions for one
brief decade, while McInerney’s novel shows us that we are co-conspirators
in sustaining some of the crucial illusions about our own lives. Ann
Douglas herself seems to be wearing rose-colored glasses when she
describes New York in the 1920s, whereas many readers feel frustrated with
Holden Caulfield because he seems unable to entertain a single illusion
about New York or New Yorkers.
Meanwhile, Jane Jacobs, with a sociologist’s critical eye, points
out the failures of urban planning and the alienations of urban life.
Consider the conclusions reached by different authors about the nature and
use of illusions and disillusionment, and advance an original argument
which you explain, defend and elaborate on continuously throughout the
paper.
Mechanical and formatting issues:
5
single-spaced pages, no fewer than 2,500 words. Include the word count on the
first page.
Times
Roman typeface, 12 pt. type.
Single-spaced
block paragraphs with single (not double or triple) white space between
paragraphs (if you want to know what this looks like, see the sample page
below)
Standard
margins
Parenthetical
MLA citations (again, if you want to see what this looks, see the sample page
below)
Print on one
side of paper only and staple or paper clip pages
No
semi-colons (your word processing software deposits them randomly at the first
sign of a sentence fragment, so they are invariably incorrect)
Do not
start a sentence with “Also”
Proofread
(don’t merely have the computer spell check)
The paper
must have an original title that is creative and engaging (not “my paper” or
“New York essay.”)
--------------
Ann
Douglas’ chapter entitled Skyscrapers, Airplanes, and Airmindedness: “The
Necessary Angel”, put heavy emphasis on the nervousness created by the
city’s rapid growth. New York had begun down a path which no city in history
had seen. As Douglas stated of the old
world, “Europeans and Englishmen have always liked to feel at home in their
cities; the out-of-scale skyscraper might, to their mind, dwarf the city
inhabitant and his concerns” (Douglas 200).
People wondered how high this “Imaginary Metropolis” might climb. Would Manhattan turn into a modern version of
the Tower of Babel? Even legendary
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was skeptical. His view was that these new colossuses were,
“no longer sane.” That they had become,
“Volcanic crater[s] of blind confused human forces… forcing anxiety upon all
life” (Douglas 200). However, as
imposing as the buildings were, New Yorkers felt that, “Skyscrapers would be as
transient as the buildings that had been demolished to make way for them,” and
that, “Thirty years from now they will be tearing up the city once more”
(Douglas 199). Little did they know that
fears that the city was climbing too high for its own good would soon be
realized.
No
one was shouting “excelsior” the day that the New York Stock exchange
crashed. It seemed that the city was
reminding its inhabitants and dependents just how unimportant they were in the
grand scheme of its history. The glory
of the twenties had been as transient as the nature of the city. This event sticks out as the prominent
example of how New York operates on a culture that constantly influences it
inhabitants with a force of anxiety.
Strangely enough, the city’s redeeming value of hope appears to have
originated from the same source of all its troubles – a skyscraper.
The
Empire State Building is a symbol of hope that ironically redeemed the city of
its defective qualities in the eye of its beholders. As the ultimate skyscraper, it should have
represented everything that led New York astray in the twenties, but it has
lived on as the city’s capstone for almost eighty years. As stated in the PBS documentary New York,
the building rose like a “metal phoenix” out of Manhattan’s heart. It represented hope for several reasons. Foremost was that it was constructed during
the Great Depression. When life seemed
that it could not get any worse, the city was hoisting up the tallest building
the world had ever known. Second was
that it had an unlikely location. While
the majority of the skyscrapers were located either downtown or uptown, this
tower was to stand alone in midtown. It
would have outmatched any building in the city, but this location made it seem
even more marvelous. Also noteworthy, Al
Smith had been hand-picked as the president of the company responsible for the
construction and operation of the new structure. The ordeal was uplifting for the city because
Smith had been denied in the national presidential election due external
resentment of New York. The town’s
fallen hero was given the chance to champion what would be New York’s crowning
gem. Finally, the structure of the
building itself was meant to inspire.
Aside from its height, it was also meant to be aesthetically
pleasing. Much like the marvels of the
ancient world, it was symmetrical. More
importantly, its topmost tower, which was saved as a surprise, acted as a
beacon of light. Atop the skyscraper was
a
No comments:
Post a Comment