As New York City’s mayoral race ossifies, with the leading candidates all short of a clear majority, the city, despite its lackluster choices for leaders, is still thriving.
In Central Park, trees tower, statues shine, and more than 400 species of birds sing. On Manhattan’s avenues, sidewalks teem, stores bustle, and towers rise, sentinels over the excited cacophony. The latest generation of pushcart-wielding immigrants sell clothes, fruit, and wares in every borough, reaching for a better future for their children. And in neighborhoods clustered around subway stations, three-story walkups stretch for blocks, punctuated by parks. Even the subway map looks like a pulsing brain — a network of connections binding the city in steel.
One thing makes all of this possible: people. New Yorkers past and present built the city. They took risks coming here, starting businesses, forming community organizations, and imagining new physical realities — and they reified those dreams…