Monday, August 16, 2004
Should New York City secede?
Anyone who has visited New York city will note the stark difference between the city and the rest of the United States. Talk of NYC seceding is neither new nor does it only emanate solely from liberals pissed off with how conservative the rest of the country is. The occasional conservative has been known to suggest that New York be cut away from the mainland and floated down the Atlantic. Since NYC's secession is an idea that both liberals and conservatives agree on, perhaps it does have some merit and deserves more attention. In this piece from New York magazine, Jennifer Senior examines the issue with all the mock seriousness she can muster.
New York has always felt like a nation apart. In a country that grows ever redder, it is the bluest of blue cities in one of the bluest of blue states, with the eccentrics to match. Eric Bogosian, with those three cubic feet of curls and black-leather car coat; Harvey Weinstein, with his public tantrums and highfalutin taste; Ed Koch; Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson; the Black Israelites preaching in Times Square; Mexican kitchen workers preparing sushi in Korean delis—could any of them find a home anywhere but New York? Only in New York. Psychically, then, New York already seems headed out of the union—so why not go all the way?
After contemptuously dismissing the idea, even the crustiest, crankiest city officials will say that, yes, the Democratic Republic of New York is a very interesting place to contemplate. How fabulous our national anthem would be. How cool our currency, the york, would look. Vera Wang could design our flags, Groucho Marx would be on our stamps; we’d all agree not to have a national bird (sorry, pigeon). Bill Clinton could be president again.
The question of New York secession first came up in 1861, under circumstances that showed just this kind of ruthless pragmatism, when Mayor Fernando Wood hoped to preserve the right to trade with both the North and the South. Most other New York City secession proposals have focused on becoming a separate state. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton warned that the city’s secession was “inevitable” if the state failed to ratify the Constitution. In 1969, Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin ran on a mayoral platform arguing that the city, needing local control of its services and finances, should become the 51st state. The most inspired part of their proposal contended that the city had dibs on the name “New York.” The rest of the state, they suggested, should be renamed “Buffalo.”
“I knew I couldn’t live in America and I wasn’t ready to move to Europe, so I moved to an island off the coast of America—New York City,” said the late Spalding Gray, the quintessential New Yorker.
What about that minor issue called defense?
Perhaps, in the end, what we New Yorkers would have to do is redefine our conception of defense. Our primary mission would be to defend ourselves and only ourselves, just like the Swiss: There’d be no training to fight in deserts or the Arctic, no heavy equipment devoted to razing jungles and boring into caves. Install a couple of surface-to-air missiles under the Brooklyn Heights promenade and call it a day. Or better yet, let Donald Trump build a fortress on the West Side, paint it gold, and crown it with his name in four-story neon lights. That would scare off any barbarians at the gate, sure as a Scud.
All that’d be left would be normalizing relations with the United States. It’d be ugly at first, but eventually we’d find that special someone, that perfect ambassador who both speaks the red-state language but still unambiguously represents New York. Again, I’m thinking the Donald. I have two words for you, Mr. Trump: You’re hired.
This is the sort of fantasy every New Yorker likes to indulge in. An ideal universe with the United Nation of Manhattan at its centre. And while we're at it, we must also do our damndest to help Staten Island secede from the city. They've been trying since 1993 to do so. I bet they could use some help. After all New Yorkers are helpful, if nothing else, right?
New York has always felt like a nation apart. In a country that grows ever redder, it is the bluest of blue cities in one of the bluest of blue states, with the eccentrics to match. Eric Bogosian, with those three cubic feet of curls and black-leather car coat; Harvey Weinstein, with his public tantrums and highfalutin taste; Ed Koch; Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson; the Black Israelites preaching in Times Square; Mexican kitchen workers preparing sushi in Korean delis—could any of them find a home anywhere but New York? Only in New York. Psychically, then, New York already seems headed out of the union—so why not go all the way?
After contemptuously dismissing the idea, even the crustiest, crankiest city officials will say that, yes, the Democratic Republic of New York is a very interesting place to contemplate. How fabulous our national anthem would be. How cool our currency, the york, would look. Vera Wang could design our flags, Groucho Marx would be on our stamps; we’d all agree not to have a national bird (sorry, pigeon). Bill Clinton could be president again.
The question of New York secession first came up in 1861, under circumstances that showed just this kind of ruthless pragmatism, when Mayor Fernando Wood hoped to preserve the right to trade with both the North and the South. Most other New York City secession proposals have focused on becoming a separate state. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton warned that the city’s secession was “inevitable” if the state failed to ratify the Constitution. In 1969, Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin ran on a mayoral platform arguing that the city, needing local control of its services and finances, should become the 51st state. The most inspired part of their proposal contended that the city had dibs on the name “New York.” The rest of the state, they suggested, should be renamed “Buffalo.”
“I knew I couldn’t live in America and I wasn’t ready to move to Europe, so I moved to an island off the coast of America—New York City,” said the late Spalding Gray, the quintessential New Yorker.
What about that minor issue called defense?
Perhaps, in the end, what we New Yorkers would have to do is redefine our conception of defense. Our primary mission would be to defend ourselves and only ourselves, just like the Swiss: There’d be no training to fight in deserts or the Arctic, no heavy equipment devoted to razing jungles and boring into caves. Install a couple of surface-to-air missiles under the Brooklyn Heights promenade and call it a day. Or better yet, let Donald Trump build a fortress on the West Side, paint it gold, and crown it with his name in four-story neon lights. That would scare off any barbarians at the gate, sure as a Scud.
All that’d be left would be normalizing relations with the United States. It’d be ugly at first, but eventually we’d find that special someone, that perfect ambassador who both speaks the red-state language but still unambiguously represents New York. Again, I’m thinking the Donald. I have two words for you, Mr. Trump: You’re hired.
This is the sort of fantasy every New Yorker likes to indulge in. An ideal universe with the United Nation of Manhattan at its centre. And while we're at it, we must also do our damndest to help Staten Island secede from the city. They've been trying since 1993 to do so. I bet they could use some help. After all New Yorkers are helpful, if nothing else, right?
