The first time I visited New York City two years ago, I was instantly enamored. I agree with Woody Allen. In the opening montage of his classic film Manhattan, he incorporates Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in the background, claiming that the city seems to pulsate to the sharp, staccato notes of the song.

Having visited, I concur. New York provides newness around every corner, much of it disjointed and incongruent—but pleasing all the same. In fact, much of it is pleasing because of its incongruity.

Stepping on a subway train to jaunt around Manhattan, for instance, is sometimes akin to stepping into a microcosm of the greater world outside. The ethnicities, the nationalities, are multiple. Even the language is surprising and interesting. Yes, one overhears a great deal of both English and Spanish, but there are many exceptions. Not only does the city host its share of immigrants, but it witnesses a constant influx of visitors who offer variety and flavor.

The cultural activities New York offers are numerous. It boasts over 500 art galleries, some of the most recognized theatre productions in the nation, and a dining experience that can itself be considered an art—with delights ranging from a savory street vendor hot dog to some of the best-ranked restaurants in the world.

A visit to just one art museum, which will take at least half a day, is worth the time. Traversing the Guggenheim’s spiral walkway to the top and back down is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Likewise, standing in front of a Warhol, Pollock, or Picasso at the Metropolitan or the Museum of Modern Art is breathtaking. Examining some of the works closely can reveal brush hairs remaining in the oils, as I saw in Picasso’s canvases.

Above all, one of my favorite portions of any vacation is the cuisine, and New York is one of the best places to eat. I tend to start at the bottom of the ranks and work my way up, so I have yet to dine in its finest restaurants, but I have consumed some of the best pizza that can be had. In fact, I would argue that it is difficult to purchase “bad” pizza in NYC. One of the best, Lombardi’s in downtown Soho, bills itself as the oldest pizzeria in America, started in 1897 by an Italian immigrant. I will vouch for the classic Italian margherita they serve. Even the free brick-oven personal pie offered with each drink purchase at the Gramercy neighborhood’s Crocodile Lounge, although plain, is not bad.

New York, of course, is famous for its delis. The best I have tasted I obtained from Katz’s Deli. Some might recognize its bustling atmosphere packed with diners seated at tables in the open area in front of the counter, as featured prominently in the famous “I’ll have what she’s having” scene from the 1989 movie “When Harry Met Sally.” I will say that if she’s having the scrumptious, oversized Reuben, stuffed full of kraut and cheese and melt-in-your-mouth corned beef piled high between two slices of toasted rye, count me in. Despite the slightly hefty $15 price tag, I’ll have what she’s having, too.

My greatest disappointment, however, was New Year’s Eve. On television, the event appears festive and uncomplicated, but as more than one New Yorker revealed, it is mostly attended by tourists. With good reason, New Yorkers have the good sense to remain home. In order to witness the official ball drop, there are one of two requirements: observers must either arrive in Times Square in the afternoon and remain there in a single spot, packed tightly without leaving for any reason whatsoever; or pay a few hundred dollars to attend a Times Square venue party that affords a view of the famed midnight event. Otherwise, it is impossible after a certain time to make it past police barricades along the streets into the Square to enter the gathered throng.

Nevertheless, the Big Apple is like no other. I plan to return during a time of year not so steeped with fellow tourists, perhaps spend a summer month sometime in the future. I feel akin to Allen’s protagonist as he describes him in the opening montage of the film “Manhattan: “New York was his town, and it always would be..." It is mine, too.

I had heard somewhere of a Nor’easter before, perhaps in weathercasts, but I wasn’t exactly familiar with one—until this past December.

In late November, I decided to go to New York over the winter holidays. I had some airline credit for agreeing to be “bumped” from a previous flight, and then I located a spectacular vacation rental deal at an extended stay hotel in Long Island City.

No, it wasn’t in Manhattan, but the subway ride looked to be a short 15 minutes right into midtown Manhattan; it was only a block from a subway station; and each room had a balcony with an iconic view of the Manhattan skyline. The notion seemed like a dream.

I might have been forewarned of further trouble when the vacation rental representative sent me the following message in the middle of December: "I regret to inform you that the hotel is undergoing some difficulties due to frozen pipes, no hot water will be running." To sum it up, she would be canceling my reservation and refunding my payment, for fear that the hotel would not be able to repair the plumbing situation within the next two weeks.

Disappointed and disgruntled, I had no other choice except to accept her cancellation—with the promise of a 20% future discount—and rebook elsewhere. Fortunately, I was able to find another last-minute deal in the heart of Manhattan.

The trip began on Monday, one day after Christmas, with an early flight from Memphis International Airport. I was already a little wary of potential trip difficulties after hearing of weather conditions in the New York area, following the arrival of a Nor’easter, a macro-scale storm dropping excessive amounts of snow on the Northeast.

Never having witnessed such a storm, I had no idea how treacherous it could be—or the extent to which it could snarl air traffic.

Before boarding the plane in Memphis, I received a text message—after having signed up for alerts from the airline—informing me that the connecting flight from Chicago to New York had been canceled. However, no representative of my airline at the Memphis airport opted to mention the situation before departure. Thus, I assumed we might have to take a later flight, perhaps even stay one night in the airport, an easily weathered hindrance.

Upon arrival to Chicago’s O’Hare International, we went immediately to rebook. During this process, we were informed that the earliest available flight would be Friday, four days later. I had no desire to fly to New York for one single day on New Year’s Eve and then return the next day on Saturday, the scheduled departure date.

I checked Amtrak, which was sold out for the next two days. The third option was a rental car. Airport rental car services, of course, are notoriously inflated, as I knew. So we took a taxi to a Chicago suburb and rented a car there.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon when the journey east began. The anticipated duration of the drive, according to GPS, was 14 hours. I had taken 12-hour road trips from Tennessee to Texas had with ease, so exactly how difficult could two more hours be in the car?

Getting out of Illinois took a while. Roads were in excellent condition, but traffic was heavy. I soon discovered why the roads were in such great condition: every few miles sat a round, brown structure heaped full of salt—a salt silo to combat those persistent icy weather conditions so common in the north.

In fact, road conditions through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—respectively—were all fine. By contrast, however, traversing the interstate through those Midwestern and Northeastern states provide very little in the way of sightseeing. The nicest perk about the drive is the rest areas, which resemble a food court offering up the likes of Starbucks and fast food giant Burger King, along with two or three other venues.

After 17 hours—including several rest and food stops, we arrived just before 7 a.m. in Weehawken, New Jersey, where road conditions were starting to appear a bit more precarious. A jaunt through Lincoln Tunnel took us right into Manhattan, where New Yorkers were trying to rebound from the aftermath of the storm.

After sliding along Brooklyn streets, I was never so delighted to reach the car rental return. Brooklyn was in even worse shape than Manhattan, with snow piled up to the top of cars, stalling Brooklynites from getting to work that Tuesday morning.

We boarded the subway to Manhattan. Later, after walking through piles of snow and eventually deep puddles of water while crossing streets, I promised myself I would never return to New York in wintertime.


However, I may have changed my mind of late. The six to eight inches of snow dumped on west Tennessee (a Midsouther?)helped fuel that change. If I have to live with snow in either place, at least there is more to do in New York City.

Much banter has been exchanged of late regarding “violent rhetoric” in the media. I thought this week of the irony of the time of this polemic, considering that it precedes a national holiday celebrating one of the most nonviolent icons of American history.

Martin Luther King, Jr., a staunch proponent of the idea of nonviolent resistance, came to Memphis in February 1968, when the city’s sanitation workers decided to strike for living wages and better working conditions. Demonstrators carried signs stating “I Am A Man” in the march to proclaim their humanity and demand their equal rights. However, the demonstration turned violent and resulted in looting and the death of a 16-year-old African American youth. In the wake of violence, King returned to Memphis in April to lead a peaceful demonstration.

If it had not been for these events that brought King back to Memphis, he might never have delivered his memorable, eloquent “Mountaintop” speech, nor would he have been assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel that April evening. Were it not for these events, King’s status as a martyr for civil rights might have been quite different.

I venture to say that very little of the American public—even those who use King’s name in their own stead—really know the ideals for which King stood.

It’s interesting to observe responses from students when I incorporate King in my teaching. I have taught King’s essay “Non-Violent Resistance” and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on many occasions in my college classroom.

Sometimes students snicker at King’s mention of the word Negro, not cognizant of cultural references which have evolved over time. Some students also think that King’s message is passé, that we have nothing new to learn from King. I get the sense, too, that King may be off-putting to some who haven’t yet come to term with their own prejudices.

I once had a discussion with a friend who lacked the advantage of having read some of King’s work. He wanted to argue that King “was not a social justice Christian,” that King did not advocate the government helping others; instead, he posited, King urged individuals and churches to help the less fortunate. King may have indeed felt this way, but he expressed his belief in writing that it was the government’s responsibility to help its citizens.

I pointed out an excerpt from his Nobel Lecture titled "The Quest for Peace and Justice" from 1964, in which he outlines his three main projects: eradication of racial injustice, poverty, and war. Of poverty, he asks the government to carry out a significant task: to care outright for the underprivileged.

King writes, “This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves.” Of course, in the forty years since King was writing, that gap between poor and rich has significantly widened in America.

King continues in his speech: “The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for ‘the least of these.’ Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor majority.”

In his conclusion on poverty before moving to his third and final subject, war, King concludes: “In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality.”

While we enjoy a day off for King’s birthday this week, we should try to put aside our disagreements over words. Let us also not forget the charge he ascribed to those of us who are the more fortunate. It is, after all, action that is more important than words.

The year 2010 brought significant action in the political arena. We lived through the BP oil spill debacle, witnessed plans for American healthcare reform, and ended the year with divisive polemic over federal tax cuts. We also saw the rise of a third political party—the Tea Party—although its viability and continuity may be debatable. Those factors remain to be seen.

However, in terms of progressive reform, we saw an interesting historical change: the repeal of the military policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) on December 18 by a 63-33 Senate vote after passing the House. Established in 1993 under the reign of President Bill Clinton, DADT was intended to protect gay men and women in the armed services from military discharge based simply on sexual orientation. 

Although Clinton was President when the 17-year-old policy was enacted, the former President said in a CBS interview with Katie Couric that then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell misrepresented the way in which the policy would work. He reminded her that he “didn’t choose this policy” and pushed forward because he feared an all-out ban on gays serving in the military.

"Don't ask, don't tell' was only adopted,” he said, “when both Houses of Congress had voted by a huge veto-proof margin to legislate the absolute ban on gays in the military if I didn't do something else.”

The DADT repeal has some time before its full benefits take effect, but it should happen, according to the Service Members Legal Defense Network website, in early 2011. Until then, DADT, under which 14,000 service members have been fired since 1993, remains the law of the land.

President Obama said of the repeal, “No longer will our country be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans who were forced to leave the military—regardless of their skills, no matter their bravery or their zeal, no matter their years of exemplary performance—because they happen to be gay. No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie, or look over their shoulder, in order to serve the country that they love.”

Furthermore, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “I am pleased to see the Congress vote to repeal the law governing ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell.’ ... It is the right thing to do. No longer will able men and women who want to serve and sacrifice for their country have to sacrifice their integrity to do so. We will be a better military as a result."

By contrast, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or the DREAM Act, another potential reform for equality, failed to pass legislative approval. DREAM allows young people between the ages of 12 and 35 who would otherwise be qualified as illegal immigrants after having entered the U.S. illegally with their parents to become an American citizen.

Currently, there are approximately 65,000 individuals who qualify for the act, organized by Utah Republican Senator Orin Hatch and Illinois Democratic Senator Richard Durbin. There are some specific requirements of this 6-year path to citizenship, primarily requiring eligible individuals either to pursue higher education or to serve two years in the military.

What 2011 will bring in terms of progressive reform will be interesting. Healthcare reforms, including the closing of the Medicare drug coverage gap, are just around the corner. The best answer is a single-payer healthcare system, which might take hold in California after Democrats recently swept state constitutional offices, paving the way for reform in other states.

At any rate, some of the changes in our laws, including DADT—and perhaps DREAM in the future—signal progress and pave the road for equal standing for all people. The opposite of equality is inequality, and inequality breeds hate. As Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love....”

I look forward to a future in which we do not have to ask, to tell, or merely to dream of equality—one closer to that of King’s vision.