“City Limits” by Colson Whitehead, is an essay in the collection, The Colossus of New York that reflects the transitions of a changing New York. In his work, Whitehead talks about a private New York that every individual creates in a metaphorical way. In addition to that he also writes about the constant changes that New York City goes through in time. New York City is portrayed as a symbol for every person that lay eyes for the first time, like Whitehead describe in the beginning of his third paragraph: “You start building your private New York the first time you lay eyes on it. Maybe you were in a cab leaving the airport when the skyline first roused itself into view.” That how Whitehead described the idea of the beginning of a private New York, which include a skyline as a metaphoric meaning. Whitehead love to play with the reader, the more you read the more you start to know New York, in other word Whitehead brings up the idea, that New York City is not the same each time that you are not looking around: “The New York you live in is not my New York City; how could it be? This place multiplies when you’re not looking…. Your favorite newsstands, restaurants, movie theaters, subway stations and barbershops are replace by your next neighborhood’s favorites…. Before you know it, you have your own personal skyline.” This is how Whitehead gives the answers to readers, that are building personal skylines that are base of memories of places, restaurants movie theaters, and now they are part of the privates New York that every individual created the first time. It also these privates New York are getting affected because New York is constantly changing, and now we are living of our skyline of memories of our privet New York.
“Who know Brooklyn?” by Ben McGrath is an article post in The New Yorker that reflect the hate between two people that not tolerate each other. In Ben works Mr. Merlis and Mr. Manbeck are the main characters which are constantly arguing about who know better Brooklyn, although both of them question the credibility of each other because of their works and hate. Merlis a man with a shaved head that teach social studies at a high school in Queens: “Has published eighteen books of his own, fifteen about Brooklyn” meanwhile his adversary has seventh books with a latest volume call: “Historic Photos of the Brooklyn Bridge.” In the other hand Merlis always is criticizing the book from Manbeck by saying: “Whit mass-media publishers like Arcadia, Turner, and other vanity presses…borough’s popularity, if you can put together a group of old photos and a few words.” In this statement Merlis is describing why mass-media, are willing to publish books from Manbeck which probably doesn’t have a contribution of the Brooklyn history. In the other hand Manbeck always accused Merlis of using material from the Kingsborough Historical Society which Manbeck founded. You can see that both of them don’t get along with each other because they start remembering old times but the most ironic stuff is that both of them are historians. Even though both of them hate each other they are not realizing that, they are affecting the history of Brooklyn in their way of acting about their works.
