Living in an apartment, in the cash nexus, was different from home, even dorms. Dogs barking at night across the courtyard seemed at first like the suburbs, therefor comforting, but they went on longer with harsher echoes. People copulating in eh next room were never comforting. The city opened itself slowly, especially to me, who was slow to examine it. I carried all the prejudices of the upstate. New York City was an alien place; it was full of welfare cheats who sucked our taxes. I thought only of greedy subway riders, not of the Cayuga County apple pickers.
[…]
Slowly I changed, and the city changed for me. Gramercy Park showed me what a city park could be. In the suburbs there were lawns, golf courses, woods with runaway vines. The city had to be more selective. The park straddled a block, breaking the street grid. Its trees looked down like sentinels on traffic, passerby, and its own benches and birds. I spent weekends sitting on the low stone wall that ran around its edge, reading biography of John L. Lewis that i was reviewing for National Review. Occasionally, people with keys (the park was fenced and locked, hence its state of preservation) passed in or out. I have coveted many things, but this was the only privilege of wealth I coveted.
