Voices

Return to New York provides ample reasons for staying in Anchorage

The automatic doors at LaGuardia Airport swooshed shut behind me on Christmas Eve in 2008. Inside, it was warm. Outside, cold winds gathered force as they whipped through the concrete corridors of New York City and onto the faces of people unlucky enough to be on the street trying to get home. I was no longer one of them, and I never would be again. I was moving — finally, permanently — to Anchorage.

Since settling here, I've adapted like I never lived in NYC. I get frustrated at (comparatively) dainty traffic jams on the Glenn Highway. Instead of ducking my head down, I make eye contact with people on the street. I feel claustrophobic when there's a line of people filing into a Bear Tooth movie, when I once commuted for an hour in a crowded subway with my face near someone's armpit.

There is one habit that I kept from my time there, though. That is walking. New Yorkers walk to get around. They walk from home to the subway, clatter up subway steps to the street, across blocks to coffee, to work, to dinner, and then back home again. Walking is necessary for daily life there – parking is impossible and to rent a spot averages $585 a month and ranges up to $1,200. For different reasons, I walk all over Anchorage, sometimes absurd distances. I've walked from Turnagain to Fairview and back. I've walked the entire coastal trail…both ways. I regularly walk to work, 25 minutes one way from Government Hill to downtown. This isn't crazy, but it is probably outside of what many consider to be "walking distance."

Noticing new things

This isn't a smart way to get around in Anchorage like it is in New York. Anchorage's design favors cars, not pedestrians (although we are slowly adapting). I walk a lot because I see things in Anchorage when I'm walking that I don't from a car, bus, or bike. I watch the city change from day to day, with seasons and weather, and I notice new things—statues, signs, stores.

When I visit other cities, I walk them too. I think it's the best way to understand a place, even if it means you get to see a little less of it. I'll plan a long day layover in Seattle so I can stash my luggage in a paid locker at SeaTac airport and ride the train into the city. Once there, I walk around, stopping for food or to buy something I can't in Alaska. I marvel at the design and scale of the downtown library, the throngs of people (vendors, tourists, locals) in Pike Place Market. I can buy a wind-up dinosaur, ride a Ferris wheel, and drink a Turkish coffee in the same hour. I savor the feeling of being on my own and getting to choose whatever I want to do, while still surrounded by other people.

I get my dose of the urban life, and then I'm always happy to return home to Alaska. We don't have as many big city features in Anchorage. However, I love the contrast between urban and wild and knowing I can escape one for the other at any time.

Seattle is one kind of city, though, and New York is another. Seattle is Anchorage's more temperate, busybody cousin -- urban but still approachable and only a "quick" three-hour flight away. New York is our East Coast relative whose speed and quick judgment is alien and jarring. Its scope and possibility is massive; it's too much. Urbanists use the word 'density' to describe how many people live in a place. For New York, the city is dense like a heavy magnet. The infrastructure is massive, and when you're near it, you get caught in it. New York City towers over and all around you and requires hours and energy to navigate.

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Jarring and overwhelming

I know all of these things, but still I was surprised I went back to New York City last week for the first time since leaving, and found the experience to be jarring and overwhelming. As I drove the freeway in toward the city, I caught my first glimpse of the skyline that I once lived within.

In the back of my mind was cozy and remote Anchorage, with its scattered, block shaped oil, government, and hotel buildings sprouted out from the lower-lying concrete roads and structures; all dwarfed by the massive Chugach Range and framed by the powerful Cook Inlet.

By comparison, a gray, dense mass of rectangular skyscrapers loomed in front of me. There were too many to count. They dominated a panoramic view; sweeping an entire skyline from north to south. That's only Manhattan.

I parked and took the train into midtown just south of Central Park. I emerged from the subway, dizzied and lost. Inside Manhattan, the tight skyline I'd seen from the road seemed even more massive. Here I was, tiny, surrounded by just a few of the skyscrapers that dominated the skyline, and the city went on like this for miles around me. I walked for hours. I remembered what it was like to live there, and although I enjoyed my visit, I was glad to leave.

Home in Anchorage

When my one-way flight from New York landed in Anchorage on Christmas Day 2008, all I could see was falling snow. There was no Chugach. There was no wind. Still, this is what it was supposed to be. I was far away from the gales whipping through the NYC streets; I finally felt home.

When, on Dec. 26, the temperature dropped to minus-20 and hovered stubbornly there for three weeks, I put on every layer of clothing I owned and walked around for as long as I could. I couldn't sit inside and wait it out for (relatively) warmer weather. I wanted to know this new city, and I had to walk around to 'get' it.

I was rewarded with hoar frost, red and orange sunsets mid-afternoon, and thick white fog rolling in off the Inlet. Even though I was able to walk for no longer than an hour at a time before feeling uncomfortably cold, I loved it.

I still love it. Anchorage is my kind of extreme; a northern one, not a huge mass of people and skyscrapers. I enjoy traveling and walking through other cities, trying to understand just a small part of them. This place is where I live, though, and I still walk around to really understand where I am.

Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage.

Alli Harvey

Alli Harvey lives in Palmer and plays in Southcentral Alaska.

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