Page 48 - 1956

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Mary Thomson Xlll
•
Senior - Firat
City Lights
A young boy walks slowly along the dirt-strewn approach to the great Brooklyn Bridge. Only a few minutes before, the glaring sun aank beneath the jagged, Manhattan skyline, leaving a smudgy pink glow in the darkening sky. Night closes in around him as;,:follows his way home, the same "way home" that
he treads every night, ~om his job in downtown New York to his home in the dirtiest part of Brooklyn. It is this route that he follows in the morning,
too. But the morning doesn't seem the same. Somehow, during the day, he
never seemed to notice the mistiness of the air, the heavy stench of the smog from the smoke-stacks of Brooklyn's factories and the lazy little tug-boats
that sit in the muddy East River below. Nor had he ever noticed the thick
layer of soot on the dull concrete supports of the bridge that the lights from the overhead lamp-posts now pointed out so clearly, or the neglected papers
that lay on thefilthy sidewalk under his feet. But now, in the gathering night, all of these things seem to glare at him out of the gloom.
As he stops to lean on the railing of the bridge, ne stares back at the city he has just left. He realizes that there is something very different_ about the night there and the night in which he stands here, almost home in Brooklyn. From his post on the bridge, he sees the city as a giant ballroom. The lights from the top of the Empire State Building hang from the sky like a magnificent chandelier, flooding the scene with a warm, white glow. Far below, the bulbs from a thousand car lights waltz smoothly to and fro to the gay symphonr of taxi horns and fire sirens.
He turns quickly from the scene and starts out again toward home. As he walks through Brooklyn's untidy streets, he sees the lights of another city. But these lights are different. These are separate, lonely lights, splodges of illumination reaching out into a lonely night, not at all similar to the picture of sparkling beauty that he has left behind.
From a lamp-post on a corner, a circle of light falls to the ground, spreading out over the corner of a grimy tenement and the littered street below. Here, a thin, slinking cat glides up to the post to sharpen its claws
menacingly. A little farther up the street, a dim, smoky light issues from a bar. Dim, smoky people move here and there under this light which seems to reflect the hardness of their characters in its Obscure glow. Around a corner,
the boy sees a light in a window several storeys above the street--the only
light in the building. Here he sees loneliness, Brooklyn loneliness, a mother waiting for a tiny, ragged child to bring home a few slices of bread handed
out b~ some charitable person who weakened to the hungry look in the little one's eyes. From another window, bright, glaring lights and loud shrieking laughter pour. The lights shout out into the night, boldly proclaiming the rowdiness within.
Then, the boy enters a street in which he can find no light at all. Even the streetlights are out. The only illumination is the hazy glow from the Sky above him. Suddenly, even this disappears; the whole picture fades and there before him he sees again the panorama of lights as from the bridge. His surroundings are blotted out and in their place is the wonderful ballroom and the dancing Manhattan lights. He hears once more the laughing horns and feels all about him the throbbing warmth of the city. Then, he turns, and unable to control himself, he runs wildly through the dim streets and alleys, back to
the bridge and the beckoning lights. He stands at last, clutching the rail
of the bridge and drinking in the excitement of the scene before him. Without even a glance behind him, he begins to run again, faster and faster until at last he is a part of the gay and wonderful city lights.
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