Dear Diary:
Before I began writing this essay the other night, I took a walk to clear my mind, and I strolled through the streets of Midtown. Amid the sweaty crowds in Herald Square, right outside Macy’s, there was a boy chasing pigeons. A fire truck drove past him with sirens blaring. A street preacher standing nearby feverishly recited from the Book of Deuteronomy. But the boy remained undistracted in his joyous pursuit. Over and over, his arms spread out, he dashed through the flocks of pigeons.
It was a moment of urban poetry, deserving of being recorded into the story of New York — but seconds later, I forgot all about it, returning to the matters of my life. Yet when I sat back at my desk, to begin writing this ode to the Metropolitan Diary’s 50th year, it occurred to me that what I’d just witnessed would make for a perfect submission to the column.
When one day New York has turned to rubble and dust, one of the most soulful chronicles of what life was once like in the city will exist in the thousands upon thousands of reader submitted dispatches that appeared in Metropolitan Diary, which first appeared in The New York Times in 1976.
Introduced by the editor Arthur Gelb, the column invites Times readers to submit their serendipitous and lyrical observations about city life. Usually running a couple hundred words each and accompanied by whimsical illustrations, the resulting published entries have long documented the kinds of scenes that define New York’s romantic chaos: lover’s quarrels on sidewalks, acts of kindness on public transportation, friendships forged under awnings in the rain and tales of encountering celebrities like Bill Murray while buying cat food at the deli.
Alongside these diaristic dossiers — which customarily begin, “Dear Diary:” — the column has published one-act plays, poems, kvetches, confessions, rants, light verse, spiels and plenty of juicy gossip overheard on Bloomingdale’s escalators.
The heart of Metropolitan Diary, however, has always been the entries that capture the city’s humanity, the tender moments that transpire daily amid its tumult, yet are so fleeting as to be invisible — that is, until a diarist submits an item about it to The Times, enshrining it into the public record.
Consider a subway scene from 1996, submitted by Gene C. Gill, recounting a woman berating her guide dog for trying to exit at the wrong stop. Moments later, she addressed her helper: “I’m sorry I spoke so abruptly. I know that you are not a stupid dog, but that was not our stop. Perhaps you lost count.”
The diary continued: “The German shepherd looked up at her with close attention during this speech, at the end of which he licked her hand. They got off at 51st Street.”
Sifting through five decades’ worth of Metropolitan Diary’s archives offers a study of New York’s relationship with change. Entries from the 1970s and ’80s mention phone books, subway tokens, egg creams, Automats, milkmen, pay phones and hot dogs from Nedick’s. Those mentions gradually begin to fade — as do names like Gertrude, Morris and Thelma — and by the 1990s terms including MetroCard, squeegees and Starbucks begin to make appearances.
Technology forever alters how the city is observed. And in 2010, evidently fed up with modernity’s encroach, Tammy Remington wrote of standing at a crosswalk in Union Square and noticing a red-tailed hawk sitting on a light pole — though no one noticed it but her. “He was magnificent and not so high up as to be out of the line of sight, yet no one around me was seeing him!” Ms. Remington wrote. “Everyone was in a hurry, they had their iPods on or were peering into their BlackBerrys and rushing to work.”
“I couldn’t stand it,” Ms. Remington added, “and began stopping people.”
Speaking of change, an entry from 1976, Metropolitan Diary’s first year of existence, lamented the closure of the Governor, a canteen that served fare like calves tongue polonaise, noting that its demise signaled “even closer the end of that once-flourishing New York institution, the cafeteria.” Reading it today, when city dwellers seem to grouse about the closing of old bars and restaurants more than ever, provides a reminder that New Yorkers have always been mourning their own vanishing New York.
Dependably, Metropolitan Diary has also long served as a kind of genteel and local TMZ for The Times, through its volumes of celebrity sightings. Their tone, however, is rarely gawking, with diarists instead using them to consider the whimsy of city life.
A man once recounted of motorcycling down Columbus Avenue one night right beside Miles Davis, who drove near him in a topless Mercedes-Benz SSK roadster. Another diarist reported of sitting near Yoko Ono with her brother at the now long gone SoHo soba institution, Honmura An, only to encounter her days later at an antiques show, where Ono remarked to her brother: “You were at Honmura An the other night!” And there was the diarist who wrote of his morning subway commute into Midtown, during which the train jostled, and Patti Smith stumbled into his lap.
One of the best yet came in 2018 from Anne Adelman, who told of how years earlier a man with a “craggy, handsome” face entered her parent’s typewriter repair shop on the Upper West Side. When she ran his American Express card, she noticed that the name embossed on it was Lou Reed.
Although it is readers who have kept Metropolitan Diary well fed and nourished with their observations, its editorial upkeep has been overseen by a lineage of Times journalists who have each possessed an ear for what makes a city story. The job requires being ruthless at sifting through the submissions pile — which receives some 90 entries weekly — to ensure that gems are picked over clichés.
Initially, after Metropolitan Diary’s debut in the Living section, these editors served as writerly newspaper columnists in their own right, bringing humoristic flair to the submissions with commentary. The inaugural columnist was Tom Buckley and others included Lawrence Van Gelder, Georgia Dullea, Enid Nemy and Ron Alexander.
The practice of the voicey columnist-editor petered out around the late 1990s, and Metropolitan Diary’s stewards have since toiled behind the scenes (a Metro reporter and editor, Ed Shanahan, is its current custodian), however its lyrical illustrations continue, and have been drawn for years now by Agnes Lee. Illustrators like Gahan Wilson, Victor Kerlow, Lou Myers and Susan Romano have also contributed.
Each of the columnist-editors brought their own touch to Metropolitan Diary, and in the mid-1980s, the reporter Glenn Collins strove for literary verve. During his tenure he published a (very) short story by Delia Ephron, city poetry by Eve Merriam and a reminiscence by Julia Child.
Reached by phone, Mr. Collins, who retired in 2013, reflected on Metropolitan Diary’s long song of New York.
“Even despite all the changes at The Times, it’s still alive,” Mr. Collins, 81, said. “I started out there as an editor with a paste pot, rubber cement and scissors. That was The Times of that time. And now, nevertheless, Metropolitan Diary still exists.”
He considered the passage of time.
“Reading the column over the years, reflects not only how much the city has changed, but also how so much remains the same,” Mr. Collins said. “There are still lovers on the subway, there are still people on buses who have funny things that happen to them and there are still cabdrivers who always have stories to say.”
The post For Half a Century, Capturing New York’s Human Moments appeared first on New York Times.
