Manhattan Neighborhoods & Points of View

Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment, Points of View
March 2, 2005


Manhattan Neighborhoods Host a Protest March
Saturday, 15 February 2003


In The Beginning, Maynard, Massachusetts
First Person, Present


Before the telephone conversation with my old friend Ashley, I had planned to buy a ticket for a ride in a bus full of strangers. Then, Ashley told me that she, Charlie, and their son, Harlan, planned to drive into Manhattan themselves for the protest march, I was amazed. Not that they shared a conviction that this was an important thing to do, but that they all agreed to do it. When Ashley offered me a ride with them, I was grateful and very pleased. I looked forward to spending time together with old friends and yes, to the luxury and comfort of a free ride. The Lieberman-Berg family and I shared a strong feeling that this protest march was very important. The Lieberman-Berg family went to NYC. I went with them.

Leaving Massachusetts, Manhattan-bound
Second Person, Present


It is Friday evening and you have decided to join old family friends the next morning for a day in Manhattan. Your own family is riveted to the TV screen in the darkened family room of your home. With ghostly TV images dancing across their upturned faces, your family lets you know that they are not in the least interested in sharing the experience.

The wintry weather is bitter cold and windy so you go to the local clothing store to buy extra thermal socks and multiple heat packets for hands and feet. The bedside alarm beeps at 4 AM and you depress it quickly before any family member is awakened. You dress hastily, but with care not to forget your medicine and your warm hat.

An hour later, you park on the street outside of your friend’s home, the passenger side tipped up on the snow heaped on the curb. They, mother, father, and pre-teenage son, are just about ready to leave – foraging for the misplaced shoe and checking supplies –water, snack, blankets, and pillows. The day’s first rays of light hug the horizon and bleed into the dark morning as you pile into the white SUV. You are going to a protest march.

Later in Manhattan, United Nations-bound
Third Person, Past


She had not intended to go, but so many of her friends were backing out because of the government’s code alert for the City that day. Although the weather was frigid, she believed people’s fear of terrorism was their main reason for staying at home. And although a shadow of a doubt about the safety of it all nagged at her too, she decided to join the march. It was a surreal day. From the dark of an early winter dawn to a ride in a lavishly equipped SUV from a home in Newton, Massachusetts to a private garage in Manhattan.

At the beginning point of the march, NYPD checked all banners and confiscated any poles which were not hollow cardboard tubes. The avenues were empty of vehicles and packed with masses of people. Sometimes people were scattered, sometimes the crowds of them were dense. Except for occasional bursts of chanting, the marchers were relatively quiet and orderly. They ambled along the route with a level of banter similar to a Saturday crowd at a shopping mall.

Surrounded always by police in full riot gear - many poised on shiny black police motorcycles, the marchers were funneled along the avenues and streets by way of many yellow barricades erected nine blocks at a time. The only airborne traffic was police helicopters. Looking around, she stood in awe of a Manhattan without the drones and squeals of air traffic, the incessant honking of cabs, busses and passenger cars, the blaring of police cars, ambulances, and fire engines.

Having lived in Manhattan, she was both surprised and heartened to see businessmen welcome marchers all along the route through Midtown and the Upper East Side to rest and warm themselves in their shops.

Well bundled and healthy, tired and freezing, marchers huddled in storefronts along the way. Through the double glass doors to a deli, she noticed a father kneeling in a corner to change his child’s dirty diaper while his wife tied her daughter’s shoe.

Although the tall buildings cut down on the reception of her portable radio, she still heard announcements contradicting what she saw and underestimating the size of the march. Unseen loudspeakers, sporadically positioned along the route, amplified the guest speakers and entertainers broadcasting from a stage near the United Nations. Save for a handful of children, she noticed that most of the marchers were older.

Rivulets of red stage makeup dripped down the faces of two women who appeared to be mother and daughter. With fake blood and strips of white linen wrapped around their heads, the women held high a sign that read, “No Blood for Oil”. Several other marchers displayed a large sheet with “Not in My Name” scrawled on it in red paint.
Obviously, they knew about the hollow-cardboard-tube rule.

Later, on 71st Street between 1st and 2nd
Third Person, Past


Even though the weather today was horrible, I was glad to have finished a lot of errands. Collette squeezed me in for a cut and touch up and Renee found time for both a pedicure and manicure. On the way back to the garage, I stopped at Saks and bought a stunning Chanel. Then, the day fell apart.

I parked the Benz by the curb in front of our place just long enough to run inside and hang my new suit in the foyer, and was back at the wheel of my car when a solid mass of scruffy looking people with banners spilled over and around a police barricade at the end of the block on Second. It was hopeless. There was no way I was going to be on time for the consult with my interior designer. So, I just sat there. The sun’s rays set off our brownstone to advantage. My car window was open on the driver’s side. They kept gawking at me; so, I told them that I lived on this street, that I was rich, and that I was not happy. They didn’t care. Just walked around my parked car and on to First Avenue – like lemmings. Good thing they didn’t scratch the Benz, or Jonathan would have had a fit.



Still later, ending at 57th Street and Central Park West
Third person, present


She looks at Charlie, Ashley, and Harlan; her two old friends and their child. All bundled for the cold weather, all tired, all miserable, and all together, they call it quits for the day. The four of them stroll westward to the garage where the SUV is parked, planning to meet midway at Charlie’s friend’s apartment. She and Ashley buy trinkets along Central Park East. Charlie and Harlan cut through the Park. They all meet at a glistening hi-rise apartment building near some new construction on Central Park West. Charlie’s friend, Tom, lives on the 21st floor.

Tom ushers them into his spacious, sun drenched, and very white apartment and immediately, she is overwhelmed by a fedora-adorned Michael Jackson dancing jerkily across an oversized flat screen TV to his musical hit, “Thriller”.
As Charlie and Tom pull out their laptops and serve up volleys of technical jargon, the others gaze impatiently through windows at vistas dominated by more tall buildings. Eyes always riveted on his laptop, Tom asks her what brought them to NYC for the day.

When she tells him about the march, he responds absentmindedly, “Oh? I think I heard something about that. I didn’t know it was today.”