How to get, how to get to...

Apparently, one of the original names for Sesame Street was "123 Avenue B." I read this illuminating article on the architecture of Sesame Street and how it's influenced the author's view of space. A lot of what he says really resonates with me, too:

"Sesame Street was my first experience of a city. I had no idea where it was set when I was a kid, or even that it was in a city at all. I tended to imagine all settings as more or less equivalent to the small Midwestern city where I grew up...I didn't realize how centralized American culture is, how little of America Sesame Street depicts. I didn't realize my life was considered provincial."

The urban environment in my mind's eye is always going to start with a green lamppost and a street name on it. Behind it, there's a green door under the numbers "123" with a friendly stoop, wedged in between a trashcan and a giant bird's nest on one side and a car-less lot on the other.

I've spent almost a full calendar year in urban environments now, starting in Rome, pausing in Chicago, and ending up here in New York City. If I haven't quite gotten the hang of New York yet, it has much more to do with the major reason I enjoyed myself in Rome and Chicago -- the people around me. In Rome, I was constantly surrounded by my friends, and we had our own Sesame Stoop in the form of a terrace. In Chicago, well, Hitchcock is Hitchcock. I think that's the major reason I never really get homesick, even when I'm in a place vastly that's different from my roots. My home's really just an idea of how a community should interact.

"Whether or not I understood Sesame Street's setting, it stuck in my head as a model for how people should live: close to one another, in a place where neighbors knew, liked, and watched out for each other, where chance encounters were common and meaningful. And I've sought that out repeatedly in my adult life."

I've been getting a lot of questions recently about where I'm going to live once I graduate. I have no idea. But I know what kind of place I'm going to look for once I get there.