Title: “A literary visitor strolls in from the airport”, article by Charles McGrath
This passage entails a story about a Mr. Self, A cab driver from London who comes to New York for the first time on December 6, 2006. The text captures the idea that walking throughout the city is not a common today as it used to be many years ago. It reveals Mr. Self’s past as a heavy alcoholic and and a serious drug addict. It also shows how he managed to put that aside by beginningĀ walking as a replacement or a form of coping. McGrath shows how walking through the city of New york caused Mr. Self to be able to see aspects of the land that many others have not discovered because they drive rather than walk. He even says, “People don’t know where they are anymore” with a tone of slight frustration because walking through an are is the only way left for a person to explore.Ā It also connects to Colson Whitehead’s “City limits” with the concept of overlapping cities when Mr. Self points out the interface of a black and Hispanic neighborhood to an Orthodox Jewish area.Most individuals may not even notice that such an overlap exist because no one thinks of walking along highways, or even walking to the heart of the city all the way from an airport.
