The Reason

This is my home, New York City. At its heart beats City Hall, surrounded by the blocks
known as the Civic Center. Even though this is the official title of the neighborhood,
most people just call it City Hall.

Let me guess: you’re wondering what a 20-year old NYU student obsessed with writing
poetry and with everything Hungarian thinks she knows about this area.

Well, as a Dean’s List student, I feel pretty akin to the determined, hard-working
people of the Civic Center. As a politics and journalism major, I’m interested in City
Hall, and in Park Row – the real birthplace of newspaper writing in NYC. Considering my
grandiose plans to be on the Supreme Court, I try to follow the local cases, too.

The nearby neighborhoods act as the veins and arteries bringing perpetual growth in
and out of the pulsing Civic Center. And, through these life lines, I connect to the city:
~ I commute from the Bronx on the number five train, which runs straight to City Hall.
~ I often go to Chinatown for sweet sugar rolls and Sanrio stationary.
~ My dad works a few blocks away and my best friend works at South Street Seaport.

After spending so much time in the area during my internship with the New York City Police
Department, I feel really attached to it. And I was in New York City during 9/11. I know
what it is like to have a life line snipped unexpectedly, leaving you dangling and wondering:
What now?

But NYC always changes, for better or for worse.
My purpose is to chronicle that change, to build bonds between the Civic Center and
everyone in it, and to strengthen my own bonds with the place and its people.