The Metropolitan Spirit
Fitzgerald Defines the
Metropolitan Spirit
F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals his three symbols of New York.
— Excerpts from “My Lost City”
1
Photo: Esther Bubley, MCNY
There was first the ferry boat moving south from the Jersey shore at dawn — the moment cyrstallized into my first symbol of New York.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
2
Later . . . my hopeless and melancholy love . . . was my second symbol of New York. The ferry boat stood for triumph, the girl for romance.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
3
Photo: Berenice Abbott Federal Art Project
There was a third symbol that I have lost somewhere, and lost forever. I found it on a dark April afternoon after five more years. I saw him walking briskly.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
4
“Bunny,” I called. I was an undergraduate while he had become a New Yorker. He was no longer the shy little scholar . . .
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
5
He walked with confidence, wrapped in his thoughts and looking straight ahead.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
6
I knew that he had an apartment where he lived released now from all undergraduate taboos . . .
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
7
But there was something else that was nourishing . . . and I got my sense of that new thing — the Metropolitan Spirit.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
8
Up to this time I had come only to stare at the show, through the designers of the Woolworth Building and the Chariot Race Sign . . .
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
9
. . . for I took the style and glitter of New York even above its own valuation.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
10
But that night in Bunny's apartment life was a distillation of all I had come to love. The gentle playing of an oboe mingled with city noises from the street.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
11
I had found a third symbol of New York and began wondering about the rent of such apartments.
New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world.
F. Scott Fitzgerald "My Lost City"
My Lost City
The full text of F. Scott Fitzgerald's “My Lost City,” quoted here, is included in the small anthologies, The Jazz Age and The Crack-Up, both published by New Directions.
Photo: The Metropolitan Spirit
About Us | Contact
Celebrating the phenomenon of the Metropolitan Spirit breathing life into the City and nourishing its people.
Photo: The Metropolitan Spirit
Walks
Some of the most magical walks in New York begin at Cedar Hill in Central Park near 5th Av. and 79th St.
Photo: The Metropolitan Spirit
Metropolitan Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue at 82nd Street breathes life and joy to visitors from around the world.
Photo: The Metropolitan Spirit
Bandshell
Classical Music Concerts have been presented at the Bandshell in Central Park since 1905 as described by E. B. White in Here is New York.
Turandot at The Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center annually presents the works of Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini.
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Concert Reviews
The Who played Madison Square Garden and Jones Beach Theatre. Van Morrison returned to Forest Hills Stadium.
Photo: Ric Burns’ New York Documentary
Films
Ric Burns’ film The Center of the World is one of the most graceful and moving responses to the events of September 1, 2001.
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Writers
E. B. White and Paul Goldberger stand with F. Scott Fitzgerald as perhaps the most enchanting writers of New York.
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September 11
In the days after September 11 thousands of flyers and bulletins went up in public places around New York City.
Piazza Navona | Photo: The Metropolitan Spirit
The Streets of Rome
The Metropolitan Spirit of the Eternal City is evoked in Bob Dylan's “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”
Rosemary Williams | Photo: Stanley Kubrick, LOC
Women of the
Beat Generation
In the 50's a few high spirited women haunted the Beat cafes in Greenwich Village and went on to live as ex-pats in Paris.
