Prime Time 7, Coursebook plus Semester Self-checks

3 New York: The city that never sleeps Before you read What comes to your mind when you think of New York City? Brainstorm ideas. A poem: “New York” by Edward Field Read the poem aloud. I live in a beautiful place, a city people claim to be astonished when you say you live there. They talk of junkies, muggings, dirt and noise, missing the point completely. I tell them where they live it is hell, a land of frozen people. They never think of people. Home, I am astonished by this environment that is also a form of nature like those paradises of trees and grass but this is a people paradise where we are the creatures mostly though thank God for dogs, cats, sparrows and roaches. This vertical place is no more an accident than the Himalayas are. The city needs all those tall buildings to contain the tremendous energy here. The landscape is in a state of balance. We do God’s will whether we know it or not: Where I live the streets end in a river of sunlight. Nowhere else in the country do people show just what they feel – we don’t put on any act. Look at the way New Yorkers walk down the street. It says, I don’t care. What nerve, to dare to live their dreams or nightmares, and no one bothers to look. True, you have to be an expert to live here. Part of the trick is not to go anywhere, lounge about, go slowly in the midst of the rush for novelty. Anyway, besides the eats the big event here is the streets, which are full of love – we hug and kiss a lot. You can’t say that for anywhere else around. For some it’s a carnival of sex – there’s all the opportunity in the world. For me it is no different: out walking, my soul seeks its food. It knows what it wants. Instantly it recognizes its mate, our eyes meet, and our beings exchange a vital energy, the universe goes on Charge and we pass by without holding. VIP file The author Edward Field grew up in a Brooklyn working class neigh- bourhood as part of an Eastern European, Jewish family. He started writing poetry during WW II, when he was an Army Air Force pilot. In 1956 he went into acting, soon using his skills to make a living by giving public readings of his poetry. Field has been a gay activist and came out fully as a gay poet in A Full Heart (1977). V Fact file New York City On 13 July 1977 New York City experienced an electricity blackout that lasted roughly 25 hours. The blackout is mostly remembered for the anarchy and violence that broke out. 1977 is generally considered a low point in the history of New York City: it suffered from a severe fiscal crisis, high crime rates due to the reduction of the police force and the cutting back of com- munity services. However, 1977 is also seen as a turning point when a new capitalist city was born – the world’s financial capital and the city of real estate and media barons as we know it today. The terror attacks of 11 September 2001 , commonly known as 9/11, were a disaster on a monumental scale for the city, but they also created a unity among New Yorkers. F 1  2  2 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 1.4 40 Regional identities Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv