The Real Citizens of New York

I’m rarely shocked by poverty and destitution, because I’ve seen a fair amount of both throughout my life. Yet, this city has managed to surprise me.

I’ve seen the ragged beggars sleeping on the steps of churches at night. I recently even saw a policeman tasering a homeless man who was asleep under the roof of Newark Penn Station. As a dutiful new New Yorker, I’ve almost learned to look away or pretend those people don’t exist, although this saddens me and makes me feel ashamed.

But the other day, in the fashionable shopping stretch of Fifth Avenue, I couldn’t pretend to be blind. A young white woman was sitting on the pavement close to the giant Cole Haan store, holding a sign:

PREGNANT
IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP
NEED MONEY FOR FOOD

And indeed, she was visibly pregnant, sitting there quietly in her fairly clean but worn clothes. I’m not sure what the moral of this story is. Perhaps, it’s that vulnerability is not just a quality of urban minorities. Perhaps, it’s that in this city of beautiful facades, even the beggars on Fifth Avenue are attractive young women.