New York as puree. An interview with Spalding Gray is one of the many treasures resulting from PBS’s documentary on New York City.
The documentary inspires me to tears, the beauty of the effort of so many to build so much – museums, skyscrapers, bridges, jobs, lives. It also makes me wonder if, now that most things that can be built are built, if we can continue the effort or just coast on a great momentum.
For example, it amazes me that California, Texas, Massachusetts, even Atlanta and Virginia have all embraced the technology economy and culture while New York continues to concentrate on bagels and clothes. We can wield some high power new media offices like Razorfish, iXL, and Sapient but only because the proximity to Wall Street is attractive to the financial community. I’m afraid we’ll get to a point where technology is not only a dominant force in the economy but THE dominant force and New York will become a has-been city that didn’t adjust to the 21st century way of conducting business.