I have memories of places and people and times. But mostly, I remember the car trips to their houses. I remember the streetlights that illuminated the neighborhoods in a orange yellow that was very different from the bright white lights of the suburbs, the blacktop that seemed so organic, appearing to have been poured into the streets and flowed to each corner and then dried and broke apart and melted under the heat of summer, rounded flowing streets with cracks and holes that looked soft to the touch. I remember the smells of pasta, sausage with peppers, smells of pizza, corn beef and cabbage easing their way into the back seat, the smell of soot and refuse. Not bad smells, being the smells of holiday and family, of christmas in Queens or easter in Brooklyn or maybe a day trip to Staten Island.

I do remember events of births and deaths and marriage and turmoil and happiness, but these all sit secondary in my memory. I realize that these are all transitory events, only holidays, just brief stops. I am not a child of New York, but only a nephew, a grandchild, or a second cousin watching the city slip by from the back of a '72 duster.