Travelling in a car is much like watching a film. The scenery stretches out beyond a single frame, and we turn our heads to capture the entire view. These images lock themselves away in my mind, filed away in my gray matter, safe from slow decay and quick destruction. I assure myself that whatever happens to these wondrous sights, they will always remain painted on the canvas of my mind, saved by my appreciation for them. I look upon fuzzy green carpeted hills. There are buildings the color and texture of chocolate chip cookies. Skies colored so intensely, that a child would wear down and break a multitude of crayons trying to duplicate them. I see a shiny, silky blue ribbon of water. Above it, a magnificent curving span of gray-blue steel, two tall rectangular arches reaching toward the stratosphere, stretching high above the small red Camaros and blue VW Beetles that pass beneath them.
On many a night, I have ridden in the back seat of my father's tan Toyota minivan, clinching at my stomach and holding on desperately to its integrity, gathering up all my willpower into a tight little ball, a sphere containing and securing the meager contents of my stomach. So much effort pitted against the common, everyday act of vomiting. And when it seemed I would lose this long, hard-fought battle, we would drive over the Verrazano Bridge.
Outside, I see the spread of scenery exude an overwhelming blue. We cross onto the span of the Verrazano, six lanes like a pair of new black jeans laid straight under rectangular arches blue as the great Mediterranean. The arch looms high above us, a giant standing above the water as tiny red sedans pass beneath. Halogens of a pure virgin white rise up out of the stark, angular shadows, lighting the blue steel as it reaches toward the dark inky firmament. The bridge is a cut out of day pasted on the mural of pitch-black night. The bridge lights fall like strings of white pearls, swooping and diving toward the passing motorists. Each bulb paints a new star onto the empty canvas of sky. The graceful arc of lights repeats itself, gentle waves in the ocean of darkness.
Proportion takes a trip, and I lose sense of size and place. I am outside the van, standing between the cables, floating in the cool air. I am gazing at this great and mighty piece of paradise, at the very gates to heaven. I come back to myself, continuing to look out and appreciate these vistas, this letterbox view I have been given of the world. Is anyone else watching the same cinema?
Loud futile honks bring forth the reply. The people slap their red, sweaty palms on the shiny texture of the wheel, and a loud, bleating warble emanates from their vehicle, echoing across the dark waterway. My heart sinks with dismay, as the realization drops like a silken curtain, the awareness that these lost souls do not see this ethereal masterwork. Instead, they pour their frustrations at traffic like clear ice water, pour forth their annoyance into this sound, a noise that carries on the night breeze and is joined by a multitude of others, taking up the plaintive call and carrying it... carrying it where?
In Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, all sounds end up at the Soundkeeper's Fortress, where they are catalogued and stored in the great underground vaults. Whispers and shouts, chimes and gongs. They all end up in these expansive vaults. Perhaps this is where those futile honks ended up.
You cannot hear the hum of engines or the murmur of voices over these trumpeting blares. It is highly unlikely you will hear the soft lapping of black waters against the wide pylons of the bridge. I cannot.
Traveling deeper into the story of The Phantom Tollbooth, there is a place called the Valley of Sound, where the mighty fortress of the Soundkeeper stands, and the people tell our hero Milo, "a sound which is not heard disappears forever and is not to be found again." (148) So these sounds fade away into nothingness. The same may be said of those things unseen, things left unappreciated, such as the bridge. I have never seen of heard of anyone speaking of the great beauty of the Verrazano Bridge. They speak of the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge. Those sights will forever remain ingrained in the minds of appreciative New Yorkers and the myriad of tourists.
Speak to many a New Yorker, and it is quite likely they have never been at the top of the Empire State Building, or inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These activities are left to visitors, to people whose day to day lives don't intersect with the existence of the city, leaving them free to see the sights, to enjoy themselves. They lack the average New Yorker's need to be somewhere.
New Yorkers hustle and bustle with their day to day lives, scurrying off to work and back in daily routines. In the Phantom Tollbooth, there is a city called Reality, and the people exhibit the same mannerisms and behavior. Juster writes, "Then one day someone discovered that if you walked as fast as possible and looked at nothing but your shoes you would arrive at your destination much more quickly. Soon everyone was doing it. They all rushed down the avenues and hurried along the boulevards seeing nothing of the wonders and beauties of their city as they went." (118) In our world, the busy and buzzing world of platinum credit cards, midtown traffic jams, and a Starbucks on every corner, this is the reality of living in New York.
Ask a commuter what the Great Concourse at Grand Central Station looks like, you are sure to get to get sparse words and a blank expression. It is not because they have never been there; it is because they have never looked.
One possible fate for the extravagant vistas of our sprawling metropolis may be found in the pages of The Phantom Tollbooth: "Because nobody cared, the city slowly began to disappear. Day by day the buildings grew fainter and fainter, and the streets faded away, until at last it was entirely invisible. There was nothing to see at all." (118) New York is acknowledged as a great city by all but those who reside within its borders. The daily routine of life has partitioned us, a prison wrought by modern civilization that hinders us from enjoyment of our surroundings. Every morning, we walk to work; emerging from a humid and murky hole called a subway, plodding up the wide, gum-crusted stairs, catching glimpses of a delicate sliver of bluest sky. It is tucked away behind airy structures of glass and steel, the sun glinting off each gray tinted window, the superstructures standing tall and white against the smooth cerulean sky. We reach the top of the stairs, turn, and take large, quick strides toward our respective places of business. We walk on slabs of smooth gray concrete. We cross streets of textured black asphalt, glittering in those moments that a shard of refractory light finds its way through. We stare at the tight, pulled back buns of hair on the elliptical heads of corporate women. We look at these things not because we want to, we look at them because it is simply where our head has fallen and it is easier to let it remain that way. The destination is paramount; the journey and its sights are an inconvenience. If we continue on this path of existence, and stopped looking at the buildings, at my bridge, would they disappear? If one removed the tourists, prevented them from the city sights, would everything cease to be visible? Have we stopped appreciating our surroundings?
We have built structures of great beauty, testaments to the imagination and creativity of their designers. We pride ourselves on our ingenuity, for the great strides we have taken in our years of evolution. But in our concern with ourselves, we may consign these creations to oblivion.
Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth. Random House, New York, 1961.