Life on the Edge—of the City

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness…

–From “Here is New York” by E.B. White

Driving through the parkland north of New York City and heading up the Taconic Parkway sets our current economic troubles in geologic perspective. Boulders the size of houses and trees—maples and pines and elms, some of them a hundred years old— sit imperiously as traffic flows by. The to-ings and fro-ings of the drivers and the speed and mania of commutation ebb and flow with the rising and falling of dollars to be gotten in Gotham.

My friend Steve is one person who flowed and is now ebbed, thanks to the loss of his job this spring. Over the years, he had commuted in from parts of Westchester, making his way progressively north until he was grinding it out with a car ride to a train ride. The job allowed him to support a growing family and still have access to woods and alone time.

“I never thought once about moving into the City,” says Steve…