26 pages • 52 minutes read
E. B. WhiteHere Is New York
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1948A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Index of Terms
Commuter
Content Warning: This section references racial violence and terrorism.
Commuters are people who work in one place and live in another. White uses the term to describe people who work in New York City but live elsewhere, generally suburbs in Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey, or Connecticut. These people come to the city each day for their jobs. White describes commuters as “desk bound” (27). He notes that they do not enjoy the spontaneity or life force of the city because they simply come to work and leave as soon as they are finished—“no rover,” as White writes (28). White describes the many elements and experiences of the city that commuters miss out on, from “roaming in the gloaming” to the reading room of the New York Public Library (27).
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan is an adjective referring to something that is international or includes elements of many cultures and types of people. It can also be used to convey a sense of glamor, sophistication, and worldliness. White uses this term to describe New York City, noting that despite the city’s lacking public services, noisiness, overcrowding, and other types of unpleasantness, it compensates by offering its citizens the opportunity to be part of “something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled” (33). For instance, New York, White writes, is “in touch with Calcutta, in touch with Reykjavik, and always fooling with something” (43). White’s use of the term “cosmopolitan” suggests that part of the appeal of New York City, despite its flaws, is its status as a center of art, commerce, and culture, made possible through the contributions of people from around the world.
Jim Crowism
Jim Crowism refers to legalized segregation and discrimination on the basis of race, predominant in the American South but present throughout the United States, beginning at the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and continuing until the 1960s. Jim Crow-era laws and practices included housing discrimination, racial violence, and voter suppression against Black Americans, among other forms of structural and interpersonal racism. White uses the term Jim Crowism when describing racial relations in New York City, noting that while Black New Yorkers are free to use public spaces and facilities, legal discrimination in housing is rampant and “in many fields of employment the going is tough” (48).
Mortality
Mortality refers to the subjectivity of living things to death. White uses this term to describe the possibility of large numbers of people being victims of a terrorist attack or act of war. The use of the term works in tandem with White’s theme of Vulnerability, which he explores at the close of the essay. White writes that reminders of mortality, in the form of dire newspaper headlines and the roar of airplanes, are constant companions to city life. He notes that “of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority” (54); its inhabitants are particularly aware of their own mortality.
Queer
White uses the word “queer” multiple times in “Here Is New York.” He begins the essay by writing that New York offers its inhabitants “queer prizes” (19). He also refers to commuters as “the queerest birds of all” (26). At the time of writing, in 1949, “queer” meant strange or unusual. It was not yet in common usage as referring to sexual orientation or gender identity, as it now is. Rather, White employs this word to convey the peculiarity of some aspects of the city he set out to describe.
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