Related From a Distance

Put two completely unrelated objects right next to each other and the characteristics they commonly share and disagree on will surface. Take a carpet and a person, for instance. Something that a person and a carpet can have in common is that both can be laid down on the ground. One thing that makes the two of them different though is one is living and one isn’t. The same concept of putting two different things together to find something in common works for Growing up Unrented on the Lower East Side by Edmund Berrigan and The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs.

Throughout The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, she writes about the city’s change through a ballet dance and movement surrounding her. “In real life, to be sure, something is always going on, the ballet is never at a halt, but the general effect is peaceful and the general tenor even leisurely” (Jacobs 833). This idea of change she discusses and goes in great depth with, portrays just how constant not just a particular city but the world is. She describes every day to be a ballet of some sort; witnessing everyone’s day as they walk down the sidewalk. Even when a corner is turned, seeing so many different face as they all move at different paces and occupy their time in different manners, it all adds to this dance. Everything changing around her and maybe even things not really making sense but despite all of that, still being able to come together and create something no matter what’s being made of it, relates to Growing up Unrented on the Lower East Side by Edmund Berrigan.

In the quote by Edmund Berrigan, “Although the New York punk scene at the time was apparently quite prominent, I was mostly interested in Star Wars figures...

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...ncept that everything around them was changing and it meant something else than just change. However, a difference between the two of them was the perspective the author wrote in and how it affected their style of writing. Edmund Berrigan in Growing up Unrented on the Lower East Side wrote in a more first person perspective making his style of writing into a biography whereas Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities in a third person perspective making her style become more opinionated.

Works Cited

Berrigan, Edmund. “Growing Up Unrented on the Lower East Side.” Calling New York:

From Blackout to Bloomberg. Ed. Marshal Berman and Brian Berger. London:

Reaktion Books, 2007. 231-238. Print.

Jacobs, Jane. “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” Writing New York. Ed.

Philip Lopate. New York: Library of America, 1998. 829-832, 1961. Print.