In this passage from her family memoir The View from Morningside, author and educator Constance Taber Colby illustrates her thesis with a striking, double-edged narrative.
from The View from Morningside Heights: One Family's New York (1978)
by Constance Taber Colby
New York City has always been called a collection of neighborhoods. Nowadays, to be sure, some of the neighborhoods look more like armed camps or the ruined areas where the camps once stood. But in places like the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where my husband and I live with our two daughters, old-fashioned neighborhoods still exist. When we first came here years ago, we realized at once that we had moved into a community that had its own special landmarks and its own local pride. And we soon learned that the people who live here, like neighbors everywhere, trade gossip, make their daily rounds at predictable times, and, in general, keep an eye on things.
So when I saw Clara Morelli, retired school librarian and longtime resident of the neighborhood, standing at the sidewalk fruit stand, weighing a grapefruit in each hand, I hurried over to say hello. It had been some time since we last ran into each other during our weekday errands, and I'd been intending to ask the grocer if he had any news of her.
"I've been in the hospital," she said, almost proudly. And then she told me why.
She had been coming home from eight o'clock mass one Sunday morning a few weeks earlier when she was grabbed from behind and slammed down to the pavement. She said she held up her purse at once and begged, "Take anything you want, only please don't hurt me. I'm 80 years old, please don't." But her two assailants not only seized her purse and tore off her wristwatch (which had belonged to her mother) but also began kicking her face as she writhed and wept. The street was empty of passersby at that hour on a Sunday, and only the arrival of a cruising taxicab, which slowed immediately, saved Miss Morelli from severe injury and possibly death. As it was, the driver had to take her to St. Luke Hospital, where she stayed for three days, recovering from shock and concussion. "He was such a nice mine," she told me. "And I didn't think to get his name so I could thank him."
I didn't know what to say. What could anyone say except that it was awful?
"Of course, it was partly my own fault," Miss Morelli went on. "I should never have gone down a side street in that neighborhood. It was up near St. Mary's Chapel, you know."
"Have you ever considered leaving New York?" I asked. "Couldn't you go stay with your sister in Maine?"
her look was one of complete astonishment.
"Whatever for?" she demanded. "Why should I move away? There's no place on earth I'd rather live than right here in Manhattan."
But it's just not safe here!" I said.
"Safe? What's safe?" She gave the New Yorker's characteristic little shrug, palms up, head cocked to one said. "It's not safe anywhere these days, if you ask me. No, as far as I'm concerned, I agree with what my butcher always says. You know Bernie, down at the Morningside Market? He says, 'Safe is how lucky you are.'"
"Well, maybe you're right. But even putting aside the danger, I don't think this is really a good place to live any more. Everything's going downhill. The city seems to be falling apart right in front of our eyes. I keep asking myself why we stay here. Is it really worth it?"
"Is it worth it?" She lowered her voice and leaned closer as if she were going to tell me a great secret. "Is it worth it? Well, count up your memories--that's my answer. Count up your memories."
