Living in this city your entire life gives one the opportunity to experience things you would not normally encounter in any other part of the country. Many of these experiences are deeply unpleasant and disturbing, including periodic attempts, with varying degrees of success, by terrorists to blow up large sections of it, along with its nor’easters, earthquakes, and even tornadoes. Yet not many people expected a natural disaster that would kill over scenes of devastation less than two miles from my home which echoed images from catastrophic tsunamis across the globe is something that I still have trouble reconciling with my conception of New York City. The dislocation experienced by thousands of New Yorkers was something that hadn’t occurred since September 11th and will probably persist well into the next decade.
Living within the borough that bore perhaps the biggest brunt of Hurricane Sandy was disconcerting, but not because of any hardship I experienced personally. Thankfully, except for some damage too minor to speak of, I came out of the storm relatively unscathed. I wish I could say the same of my friends, some of whose lives were completely upended, an experience that included being driven from the places into which they had invested tremendous effort for decades to make a home for their families.
Despite the regrets I have about leaving Brooklyn two years ago, and I still miss it every day, I don’t think I can properly express the gratitude I have for the people of Staten Island, friends, acquaintances, and in some cases complete strangers, who have shown me over these past two months the quality of character they possess, regardless of how trying the circumstances they face might be. These are people who didn’t wait to be rescued by some distant official from the Office of Emergency Management or a staffer from the Red Cross.
They banded together to complete with Santa and his helpers, which brought smiles to the faces of scores of young children whose families didn’t have the resources to give them a normal Christmas in 2012.
I recognize the divide that exists between newcomers to this borough and native-born Staten Islanders, a split that grows as thousands of other New Yorkers move to the borough and inevitably add to its traffic, but one of the greatest impressions I was left with in the wake of Sandy was the sense of solidarity that extended throughout the broader community. Granted, this sentiment wasn’t universal, but the generosity of spirit and lack of ill will reflected an essential goodness about the people who live here.
Growing up, I thought of this borough as a place my family would periodically visit in order to shop at the Staten Island Mall or to see a relative who now lives in Florida. I never envisioned it as a place where I would spend a significant portion of my life, and even after living here for two years I had an emotional distance from this part of the city.
But after witnessing firsthand Staten Islanders’ response to the worst of circumstances, including dealing with officials whose actions at times seemed disconnected from the needs of those suffering in Sandy’s aftermath, it’s hard not to feel a genuine connection to this borough. It’s a response to be proud of, even if it goes unrecognized much of the time. One of my resolutions for the coming year is to be more aware of the spirit of self-reliance and community that characterizes my new home.
This post was originally posted on American Rattlesnake and reposted with permission from the author.
http://american-rattlesnake.org/2013/01/the-forgotten-borough/
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