A couple of months ago while walking to the subway in the Flatiron District, tired from work and my bones still rancid from the arduous winter, I paused in the sidewalk and leaned my head back to receive the golden May sunlight. As I began to resume my walk, I am stopped cold by the sight of a man about to jump from the tip of the Flatiron Building. I let out a muffled scream, my eyes oversized, a hand covering my mouth in awe. I looked around me and see I am the only one alarmed...Have they not realized this man is about to jump? Should I call someone? Worst of all, Do they know and not care?
This was the first reaction that Gormley's Event Horizon exhibit provoked in me. After I walked the same path on various days and saw the same man, about to jump, (no one alarmed again) I started to notice a multiplicity of people pointing their fingers to the sky, and in directions other than the jumping man. I followed a finger and there was a man on top of the clock building across Madison Square Park; I followed another finger and there was another man on top of the red brick building on Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, right next to the cross; as my eyes wandered the skies of the neighborhood I see they are everywhere!...man shaped, bronze colored statues, standing still against the rapidly moving city.
Every day after that, I discovered new statues in the Flatiron sidewalks and skies; I roamed the blocks around the park to see how many more I could find; I realized depending on the angle you stand on, you can see ones but not others; each time I discovered a new one, I felt compelled to call my friends to let them know there were at least a dozen statues; when I saw people discovering them for the first time, I (uncalled for) rushed to them to pinpoint where they could find more; when I saw a new one early in the morning, an enormous grin lingered in my face at least until mid morning. The feelings the statues were evoking, reminded me of my first days in the city, when I unraveled the city's little gifts with eyes anew and an open heart. Since I moved to New York City, a great amount of the happiness I experience comes from the unexpected events that I come across in the streets: the sidewalks sprinkled with musicians; the vastness of skin colors, hair textures and accents around me; the street food and its unidentifiable yet delicious meats.
But most of us who have lived here a while, unconsciously or willingly quit the high of being amazed. Its hard to see the city's beauty underneath people's rudeness and hurry; it is tough to genuinely smile in the morning, when its freezing cold, the wind slashing your lips, and you still have to walk some blocks to get to work; it is almost impossible to be in love with the city in a sustainable way.
Everything moves so rapidly here that I am rushed through my day along with the masses, a million stimuli bombarding my senses from every direction...and inside of me, a deep longing to be still, to savor the city, to reconcile with this place. I ask myself this question every day: Do I really want to live here? Why do I love and hate this place all at the same time? I am not sure if New Yorkers ever get the answer for these questions, but I am completely sure that the city will uninterruptedly amaze them and allow pockets of stillness, sometimes in the shape of statues.
