A Family Inheritance: New York City and Cosmopolitanism
By Catherine Kenny
It is 9:00 on a Monday night, and after a day of three classes, work, and the ever-impending doom of finals on the horizon, all I can think about is what to have for dinner. I cautiously close the tabs on the old Apple computer that sits on my desk at work and go over my options. The most appealing choice, and also the least likely, is that I will order food to be delivered to my dorm in an effort to minimize the distance between myself and my bed. That idea quickly fades as I recall the delivery fees of last week’s Chicken Tikka Masala. Remembering the long list of to-dos for the evening, I decide to stop by Palladium, the dining hall closest to my dorm. I brush aside memories of headlines about food poisoning from sushi gone bad and head down Lafayette Street. It’s almost a straight shot from here, turning slightly onto Fourth Ave and again on East 14th St.
Once I race through the revolving doors and tap my ID, I take the elevator to the third-floor dining hall. I use one meal swipe for spaghetti, bump into an old friend, and take a seat at an empty table. As I attempt to list the night’s tasks in my head, I take in the room around me – plastic tables with wooden chairs, dimly lit overhead sconces hanging from the ceiling, the quiet chatter of students, a mix of excitement, hope, and college-aged narcissism. I grab a notebook and go over notes from last week’s Writing New York lecture on Cosmopolitanism, and read, “Cosmopolitanism is defined by an additional element not essential to universalism itself: recognition, acceptance, and eager exploration of diversity. Cosmopolitanism urges each individual and collective unit to absorb as much varied experience as it can… for cosmopolitans, the diversity of humankind is a fact” (Hollinger). These qualities have been a part of my life since long before I knew how to categorize them. I recall my own working definition of Cosmopolitanism as the recognition of oneself as a “citizen of the world,” as part of a universal community. Bullet points in my notebook under “Characteristics of Cosmopolitanism” read, “self-consciousness, open conversation, representation, and an understanding of human fallibility”. Since I’m here, I recall the stories about Palladium that my great Uncle Chris, the first Cosmopolitan I knew, has told me. What is now a (mediocre at best) dining hall was once a different Palladium, a 1980s nightclub started by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the creators of Studio 54. Suddenly, plastic turns to velvet, sconces turn into neon lights, and chatter turns into disco. I hear “Victim of Love,” Elton John’s voice wafting through a sea of jumpsuits, glitter, satin, and denim. My mind wanders.
“When I got to New York, it was the height of gay and artistic culture. Bob and I would go to Palladium Nightclub on 14th and Brandy’s Piano Bar on the Upper East Side, but never Studio 54 (our friends who went called it “Studio”), which definitely had the It Crowd, but also a sea of socialite followers,” recalls Chris. When he tells me about his life in 80s New York, I can’t help but fight feelings of jealousy and nostalgia. Chris was born in New Jersey in 1950. Raised by his mother, Kathryn Collins, who owned a dance studio in Clifton, New Jersey, Chris was bitten by the performance bug. He taught at his mother’s studio until he became a member of Actor’s Equity. After that, it was New York or bust. For years, Chris commuted to the city, where he performed “lead, featured, and chorus roles in summer stock, dinner theater, touring companies, and Off-Broadway showcases” (Ascend The Stairs). He landed a job teaching professional Jazz classes at Luigi’s Jazz Center in New York, but after years of trying to break into showbiz, Chris decided to put away his tap shoes (professionally, at least) and express himself politically. While working as Chair of Manhattan Community 8, Chris met Robert Kulikowski, who worked at the Health Department, at a community meeting. After meeting again a week later at a gentlemen’s bar on East 58th Street, the two began a decades-long New York love story. The next few decades would be spent in a beautiful Chelsea apartment decorated with Don Quixote paintings and a button for each election they voted in an amalgamation of politics and arts in true cosmopolitan fashion.
The mid to late 1900s were crucial to the history of Cosmopolitanism in New York and produced reflections of the philosophy in all genres: social, political, and artistic, to name a few. Chris grew up amid The Civil Rights Movement, The Vietnam War, Andy Warhol, and New York Yankee domination, all producing a society full of restless cosmopolitan thinkers. As Chris put it, “You had to be cosmopolitan if you wanted to make any change.”
Back with my cold spaghetti in my wooden chair, I feel a woman tap my shoulder. “Dining hall’s closed, love. You gotta leave.” Embarrassed, I shovel a few more bites into my mouth and prepare to head to my dorm on 14th and 3rd. The chairs return, as do the sconces. There is neither chatter nor disco; the moment is over. I am brought back into the current moment and remind myself that I have to live in the present. The next morning, I wake up to the usual sounds of the city. I walk to my first class of the day, taking the route through Union Square, another hub of cosmopolitanism and my family’s history. There are vendors of all kinds set up along the park – weed, handmade jewelry, crystals, used books, you name it. A few days a week, the Union Square Market brings hundreds of buyers to the park. This particular morning, I take an extra minute to survey the large bronze portrait of George Washington centered on the South end. I can’t help but think about another prevalent character in my family’s story: my great, great, great grandfather, Matthew Maguire.
My family’s first story of Cosmopolitanism was not my own, nor was it my Uncle Chris’. In June of 1850, my great, great, great, great grandparents Christopher and Mary Maguire arrived in New York Harbor from Ireland as a result of the Potato Famine, when “immigrants by the thousands continued to pour in” (3:45-3:49). While the ship was docked, Mary gave birth to my great, great, great grandfather, Matthew, giving him a life of citizenship and opportunity. Though, like most of my family, Matthew spent his childhood in New Jersey, specifically the Eighth Ward, he quickly began to call Brooklyn home. He moved to Brooklyn to enter the employ of the Columbia Iron Company, where he began to take part in labor agitation. Matthew took part in organizing the Central Labor Union of New York, which prioritized reforms for laborers with beginnings similar to his own, the “street car employees, brewery workers and bakers, the making of cigars in tenement houses, and the establishment of the bureau of labor statistics and factory inspection” (“Matt Maguire Passes Away”).
The most widely known aspect of Matthew’s life, however, was his idea for setting aside a day for the “laboring man,” which would later be named Labor Day. In 1882, Matthew organized the first Labor Day parade to be held in New York City at Union Square, where he spoke about the strength and “esprit de corps” of labor organizations (“Matt Maguire Passes Away”). In 1881, he was a prominent figure in the struggle of Irish people against landlordism. He was made secretary of a demonstration held again in Union Square to support the Irish and their “no rent” strike. He turned towards a political career in 1894, was elected to the board of alderman from the Eighth Ward, and was nominated for vice president of the United States by the Socialist-Labor party. The Labor Movement was a rewarding and exclusive opportunity for Irish immigrant families like Matthew’s. Matthew and his cosmopolitan ideals were not easily accepted. Treated similarly to indentured servants, Matthew and his peers were given more privilege than people of color or women at the time but were also seen as lesser than in comparison to other communities within the movement. Repeatedly, Matthew and his peers would be turned away, scorned, or laughed at in response to their attempts at labor rights. Instead of giving up, Matthew used his unique background and cosmopolitan values to create change.
Matthew and his successes can be described in many ways, but cosmopolitan graces are at the top of the list. Growing up during a rich cultural time in history, Matthew quickly learned the importance of a diverse community. The mid-1800s were synonymous with the growth of metropolis, specifically within New York (and, by extension, New Jersey). The lower/middle-class society to which the Maguires belonged at the time was not bound by the confines of any certain cultural demographic. This gave immigrants such as the Maguires a diverse lens through which to look at the city around them, “people were learning about each other’s cultures…and that’s what made the downtown cosmopolitanism” (4:22-4:41). Throughout his labor work and his eventual transfer to politics, he held onto the idea of being a citizen of the world. He also prioritized the cosmopolitan characteristic of constantly searching for the best way to solve problems for a diverse collection of questioned norms and responded with concrete and inclusive action.
As I leave Union Square Park, I grab my headphones and pull up my New York playlist, hearing Sinatra float into my ears. My heart swells as I pass through the ever-changing yet ever-present streets of the city. The pull towards the city I feel today is the same pull I felt years before New York was possible for me. “The settlers give it passion,” says White, and passion did I bring (White 26). Before I moved to the city, I spent hours reading coming-of-age New York novels, listening to Frank Sinatra’s “Theme From New York” on repeat, and doodling skylines during recess. This idealization of New York quickly evolved. It wasn’t until I physically came to the city that I could pursue the cosmopolitan characteristics that I’d always had – open conversation, feeling like a citizen of the world, an eagerness for diversity, and an acknowledgment of human fallibility. Through the challenges of COVID-19, Climate Change, The MeToo Movement, and The Black Lives Matter Movement headlining New York life, cosmopolitan conversation was needed, and it gave me the perfect introduction to the city and the worldview. When I moved to New York in August of 2020, I felt like I was simultaneously returning home and discovering an unknown place for the first time. Soon, my best friends were from India, Alabama, and everywhere in between. I sought to improve upon the limited history of New York, reading everything from Kushner’s Angels in America to Myles’ Chelsea Girls to Livingston’s Paris is Burning. Even more importantly, I could finally explore the physical pull of the city in addition to the ideological one.
I quickly learned about the complexities of the city, specifically through the fact that each New Yorker is similar yet unique compared to another. I remember hearing E.B. White’s explanation of the three New Yorkers, “There are roughly three New Yorks. First, there is the New York of the man or woman born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, and turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter – the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something” (White 26). I knew right away that, though I agreed with White’s thoughts, there was more to the conversation. I knew that each New Yorker has a role to play in the city, “commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity, the settlers give it passion,” but I had questions as to why New York has such a distinct pull, and what the throughline of each part is (White 26). Both answers start and end with the philosophy of Cosmopolitanism.
So, here I stand on campus at New York University, about to enter the first class of the day. I’ve passed by hundreds of people on the quick walk. I’ve passed by new buildings and old buildings and buildings in between. I’ve passed by New Yorkers who were born here, commute here, dreamed of being here. I’ve walked by Palladium, the stomping grounds where my Uncle, the commuter from New Jersey, carefully balanced art and politics in a time of city-wide restlessness. I’ve walked through Union Square, where my great, great, great grandfather spoke on the first Labor Day, using cosmopolitan conversation to fight for a diverse universal community. I think about how much dedication and passion were needed to keep this city alive for me.
Unfortunately, the history of New York is too palpable to ignore. New York is the crossroads of the past, present, and future. Author E.B. White writes, “No matter where you sit in New York, you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds, of queer people and events and undertakings… I am twenty-two blocks from where Rudolph Valentine lay in state, eight blocks from where Nathan Hale was executed, etc” (White 20). Present New York is constantly teetering between the past and the future – we mourn the city twenty years before us, and anticipate the improvements twenty years after us. When New Yorkers walk through any given neighborhood, they walk as themselves and as the culmination of every New Yorker before them. However, its ideological legacy of cosmopolitanism is as important as the city’s physicality.
“By rights New York should have destroyed itself long ago”, White writes, “from panic or fire or rioting or failure of some vial supply line in its circulatory system or from some deep labyrinthine short circuit” (White 32). In 2020, White’s observation couldn’t have been more true; New York should have destroyed itself if not for a cosmopolitan outlook on the world. Each New Yorker, past or present, is given an opportunity to achieve Cosmopolitan values. Whether they are New York-born, a commuter, or a transplant, each person leaves behind the physical and ideological New York; an inheritance kept alive through Cosmopolitanism. White’s three New Yorkers keep the physical city alive, but cosmopolitan ideals keep the pull of the city alive. I have inherited this city (both the physical space and the ideology), and have no doubt that the greatest New York is one that strives to carry on its generational legacy through Cosmopolitanism and passion.
Works Cited
Hollinger, David. “Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism”. Accessed via “Writing NY Lecture Two: Cosmopolitanism and Whitman (January 25)” Post-Lecture Notes.
Ascend The Stairs, Katherine Collins Dance Studio, Inc. Informational Packet, 1960s.
Writing New York Video 2, “Contextualizing Edith Wharton.” Accessed via Brightspace.
https://brightspace.nyu.edu/d2l/le/lessons/264070/topics/8268497.
“Matt Maguire Passes Away,” Obituary Article from The Morning Gall, 1919.
White, E.B. Here is New York. The Little Bookroom, 1948. Accessed via Brightspace,
https://brightspace.nyu.edu/d2l/le/lessons/264070/topics/8247172.