New Yorkers Need to Take a Walk
Why picking up the passeggiata could be a good that comes from a deadly pandemic
Note: Originally written May 2020
The concept of walking, without intent, is foreign to New Yorkers. We are always going somewhere. A stroll is simply not in a New Yorker’s vernacular. We pride ourselves on walking fast. We brag about weaving through wide groups. We bemoan (curse out?) the abruptly-stopping tourist.
We speed and weave and bemoan from our apartments to the coffee shop, from the subway to our office, from happy hour to dinner. If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere, and that anywhere is always a specific time and place that I must be present for because it is more important than anything else that is going on (but I will still be 15 minutes late).
There’s no New York equivalent to an Italian’s passeggiata. Those nightly walks are a custom for the entire nation. After dinner, the passeggiata is an opportunity to see and be seen. It is a slow walk, in the evening, in the company of loved ones or friends, through the town they call home, with no finish line in sight.
The Italians dress to impress. They hang on the arm of an equally adequately-attired friend or lover. They check each other out, perhaps explicitly, but never at the compromise of the rhythm of the conversation. And any Italian will tell you, it is an opportunity to gossip. These points alone should get New Yorkers’ attention for a new hobby. But this is at odds with the purposeful nature of a New York walk.
The passeggiata is also an opportunity to decompress after a long day. It is a ritual. It’s a mechanism believed to aid the digestive process. It’s the sigh you let out as you wrap up your final tasks. It's the longer, more luxurious espresso or cigarette break that Italians allot themselves throughout the day. It’s the swelling of a community to fill the voids in the streets when the fruit carts are wheeled away.
New Yorkers don’t stroll. We’d balk at the idea of how Italians conduct their nightly passeggiata. We don’t have the small streets that open into a piazza. We don’t have the centuries-old buildings with cafes to flank us as we circle fountains by Brunelleschi. We don’t have the church bells to ignore as they toll the passing of time. The reclaimed pedestrian area of Broadway in Flatiron isn’t cutting it (even it does find itself, conveniently, outside of Eataly). Plus, we don’t do rituals, especially communal.
And we have that thing that we have to get to.
I’ve taken up walks since the city’s shutdown. This is more of a means to escape the apartment than it is a task. But I’ve taken in more than I expected to. I’ve noticed how the underside of the Williamsburg Bridge draws you to infinity. The lampposts on the bridge’s side are exquisite and have to be useless. And those men casting lines next to me just begged to be asked if they fish here because they live nearby or if the quality of East River fish is better than their classmates in the Hudson (But their music is blaring and I’m busy on a walk, so I don’t ask).
Has that West Village townhouse always had a driveway? Look at how the branches of that schoolyard tree navigate their way through the chain link fence. I can’t believe I only had to go to an 18th-century carriage house on 62nd to get a taste of Hamilton. Manhattan has way more 1-story buildings than I would’ve put money on. And this brick! That ivy! The glass-bulbed sidewalks! Those sneakers that hang like mistletoe.
There’s no New York equivalent to an Italian’s passeggiata. Those nightly walks are a custom for the entire nation. After dinner, the passeggiata is an opportunity to see and be seen. It is a slow walk, in the evening, in the company of loved ones or friends, through the town they call home, with no finish line in sight.
Italians also take these laps around the neighborhood to court future lovers (We have apps for that thankyouverymuch). But it is also an opportunity for them to strike up a conversation with their neighbors. What a concept: to have a nightly hobby to run into those people you see daily without a hurried excuse to avoid a conversation.
The passeggiata, in some ways, is also a way to honor the place that you call home. It allows for a community to be thrust out from behind walls and into the open. It brings people from apartments up above onto one level and prompts conversations that liven the streets. Without meaning to, it allows residents to learn the streets of their home city like the veins in their hands.
Italians are not alone in loving a stroll. The British too love their walks. Between the World Wars, The Ramblers’ Association was started: a walking group to protect the interests of those that simply stroll. Whether in London or the countryside, walkers should always have a good path.
But during World War II, England forced its denizens into their homes. The country needed to turn off all of the lights to protect itself from bombings. Walkers had to retreat from the streets or risk being struck by drivers who turned the vehicle’s lights off.
Those years were not an easy time for the country. But the blackouts also brought people together. Families were forced to spend time in the home. New hobbies were picked up by a generation of Brits. And because of the pristine darkness that went on for miles, radio commentators encouraged people that then, in the middle of a world war, might be the perfect time to stargaze. All of the darkness that blanketed a country allowed for people to better see the constellations of bright.
The United States is facing a war in the form of a virus. At the center of that battle, is New York City. New Yorkers showed that they are prepared for battle. In a city whose culture is having millions of individual cultures, masks became a binding agent. Where crowds were once the norm, like in grocery store lines, people now respect each other’s space. Even in America’s most densely populated city, New Yorkers are generally following the rules, even if that means being confined to their tiny apartments.
New Yorkers once again showed that in the face of disaster, they were eager to stand united. They were even willing to adopt a communal ritual. Each night at 7pm, they go to their windows. They bang pots and pans, they clap, they scream. Flags are waved, car alarms are deliberately set off. It is a unifying moment of appreciation for all of the healthcare workers and frontline responders of the coronavirus pandemic. The New York streets that have grown eerily quiet in recent weeks swell with a clamorous sign of appreciation every night.
Perhaps, in the near future, the clanking and the cheering can be taken from our windows and down to the streets. There, we will be able to embrace and gather with our neighbors. It’s unlikely that the cheering will continue through the years, although it should. But this pandemic has shown us that we can slow down our New York lives and commit to a ritual. What’s missing from this city of everything is that breath of fresh air; a walk with friends, with no finish line and no purpose other than to enjoy the company of neighbors and quietly appreciate the city in which you live.