Death of the Authentic Knish
Last week, our friend Jim came to visit. Because my hours are far more flexible than Eileene’s, I flew the tour guide role solo on two days. I am not the ideal choice to direct someone to the joys of New York City, since I don’t like it much, and have avoided it for much of the eight years I’ve lived here in New Jersey. Jim’s visit was my first visit to Liberty Island and the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Really. I’ve observed the Statue of Liberty from across the sound, and I’ve walked through the Empire State’s basement, but hadn’t yet taken the full plunge.
The Empire State’s observation deck has several large, metal plaques pointing out every landmark you can see from the height. The buildings aren’t much to look at; they were designed to be seen from the ground. Neither are the neighborhoods much to look at, unless you already understand the layout of the city too well for the view to help. But I appreciated one plaque that outlined ethnic neighborhoods, because it also outlined where the neighborhood borders used to be in earlier generations.
Chinatown has been giving Little Italy a serious demographic beating, spreading to cover pretty much the whole of the lower east side, while Little Italy has shrunk to a few blocks skirting the edge of the financial district, giving a distinct impression of surviving only on the curiosity of tourists. But I expect the Italians – or rather, Italian-Americans – are mostly happy with this state of affairs. It is powerful evidence of integration. They no longer need to congregate in order to find someone to talk to, or some decent groceries, or neighbors who won’t prey on them because they wear funny clothes.
The Irish and Polish neighborhoods are gone, a nucleus of the latter moved to outlying boroughs. The Chinese, Russians, and Pakistanis are moving in (though not necessarily to Manhattan, where rents now range from high to astronomical). And, in time, they will move aside for newer waves of immigrants. Divisions of skin color are powerful in this country, but so are deliberate efforts to overcome them.
We lose something with integration; it’s hard for all us outsiders to get exposed to real old world culture when children and grandchildren start adapting new ways. I’m told that, while Jewish delis abound, and we can find something labeled “knishes” on half the streets of New York, the “real thing” is a rarity, and even the most hardened of traditionalist restaurateurs inevitably lose some authenticity – to higher-class, more expensive ingredients, if nothing else. But such losses are microscopic beside what we gain. If it’s harder to spend a day immersing ourselves in a foreign neighborhood, the bits and pieces we really like are so common as to be invisible.
I wish I could see which countries future immigrants will come from, and where they will settle. I wish I could glimpse what the country will look like when the current immigrants are fully incorporated into the melting pot. I wish I could get a better look at what the face of America will be as new genetic combinations become common. And I wish I could watch these patterns somewhere other than the observation deck, because it’s way too cold up there in January.