In Colson Whitehead’s opinionated essay City Limits he believes that once you have been to New York you are ruined for anywhere else. New York makes any other hometown “look really drab and tiny”. You start building your own New York with your first experience there. Everybody who has been to New York has there own perspective, how they see New York. He calls the first New York experience the “first brick” and that’s when you start building your own New York.
No matter what others tell him about New York, Whitehead says he is sticking with what her first saw and experienced. It does not matter what other people tell you about New York you will always see it how see it. Nothing can change Whitehead’s mind that the Met Life Building still says Pan Am. Anything someone tries to tell you about how New York used is to be is hokum. Your bricks then start to add up as you go along. As a New Yorker you will move to different places from time to time. All the different buildings you lived in can represent a time in your life. They hold memories that you may not remember about yourself. If buildings could talk they would remind you of your past and all the experiences you had at that time. Over time you will remember those places as you saw them. After a while they will change but they will always remember as you remember them. Whitehead thinks it is important that you remember them because one they will be gone and you won’t get the chance to say goodbye.
