The New York subway is 110 years old and has 24 lines with 6,311 cars. Even if the local subway is a paragon of reliability compared to the London tube: there is always something tinkering with such a large network. It recently hit our station. The announcement that the stop would be closed for the weekend due to track work reached us via A4 leaflets pinned to the walls. The leaflets said: There is no train service between 110 Street and 248 Street Saturday and Sunday.
Even if the Hispanization of the United States is gradually old hat or sombrero: When you have seen it up close, it is impressive how advanced the development into a country with two languages and cultures is. Because data journalism is currently in vogue, I’ll pull out a few numbers first: There are 53 million Latinos living in the United States. That is more people than Spain has inhabitants. In New York there are nearly 2.4 million, overtaking African Americans as the city’s second largest population. By the middle of the century, a third of all US citizens will be Latinos – or Hispanics, as the Spanish-speaking minority is also called in this linguistically correct country.
My New York attitude towards life is also shaped by the Hispanics in the neighborhood. Now that it’s hot and humid, our neighborhood is turning into a kind of Buena Vista Social Club. Women with Rubens figures in skin-tight jeans swayed down Amsterdam Avenue. Old men on folding chairs look relaxed after the barges of sensuality. The grandiose voice of Cheo Feliciano can be heard from the barbershop. The one and unico! Frank Sinatra of the Caribbean! There is a smell of rotten fruit and exhaust fumes in the streets. In the queue in front of the taco stand, people babble, talk and gesticulate. And I – I’m the tallest in line! In Switzerland with 179 centimeters still just under the average, in northern Europe almost a dwarf – but in this part of Nueva York: Gardemass.
Only two complaints: The service friendliness of some Latinos is reminiscent of Zurich or Volgograd. And how people sneak through the streets here! I recently praised New York’s pedestrians, but the pace of walking on the Upper West Side is the speed of a full anaconda and can get on your nerves if you are in an exceptional hurry.
Whether this is actually due to the super relaxed Latinos in the neighborhood – tranquilo, tranquilo – has not been proven. Of course, not everyone is in that mood. In any case, a screenwriter friend of mine called my assumption during the joint beer “bullshit”. The screenwriter is a very funny guy in his early thirties who has just sold an idea for a film to Hollywood. But when it comes to linguistic and political correctness, even he doesn’t understand joke. The next time I met him for a beer (Brooklyn Lager), I triumphantly waved around an issue of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. A study on walking pace in various countries was published in the journal. The slowest pedestrians are actually found in Mexico. Where, on the other hand, I took a bit of a pause: The swiftest are supposedly the Swiss. ¡Caramba!
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