New York / U.S.A.
New York, A Ceaseless Force of Implementation
Kentaro Kuroiwa / Marubeni America Corp.
Filled with sorrow and confusion a year ago, Manhattan has remarkably recovered its renowned vitality. The driving forces behind this recovery are the vitality of its inhabitants with their diverse personalities and deep love for this city. This report introduces those people that love this city whom I got acquainted with during my holidays.
On Sunday mornings, New Yorkers enjoy their brunch with their friends and family at their favorite cafe with the thick Sunday paper on the table. I enjoyed brunch with Naya in Soho on this Sunday, Naya is a prospective artist who came from Greece. She is one of the individuals who overcame last year's terrorist attacks and shaped their own future. She was supposed to start living in New York from last fall in correlation with holding her first private exhibition. However, her dream was shattered on its eve as her sponsoring firm was located in the World Trade Center.
However, she kept searching for a means to enter the United States, and eventually landed a scholarship for the graduate school of famed Yale University. As a result, she recently fulfilled her long-time ambition of living in New York. She is strong. The location of the cafe in Soho leads to well-known designers and architects just dropping in. Naya says that just by living in this town, such artists give her artistic inspiration. Countless individuals with such strong wills, stimulate each other in New York and form the dynamism of this city.
People enjoying yoga on the grass of Central Park on their day off. Each person relaxes in his or her own way dressed as they like.
In the afternoon, I took a load off my feet in Central Park by myself. I was surrounded by people doing yoga, people sunbathing in bathing suits and people reading books. Everyone actively uses this vast field of green as his or her own salon as they like. Further, young people in their twenties and thirties introduce themselves to each other and relax while enjoying idle talk. Someone pulls out of the group when so desiring and another joins at his or her discretion. English with Spanish, French and Indian accents is heard. With the great influx and outflux of people that occurs in New York, new networks are established in this manner.
The other day, friends of mine held a homemade wedding on this field. The happy couple was Robert, a Dutchman, and Natalie, a French girl. The friends who gathered to congratulate them were from many national backgrounds. It is a rule of this city for people to express their own lives in their own color without sticking to traditional forms. And it is the will of city residents to build up their lives in the environment in which such a rule works out that spontaneously generates this city's ceaseless force of implementation.
Marubeni Group magazine "M-SPIRIT" VOL.11 (September,2002)
