Volume 42, Number 20 · December 21, 1995
Separated at Birth
By István Deák
Budapest and New York: Studies in Metropolitan Transformation, 1870–1930
edited by Thomas Bender, edited by Carl E. Schorske
Russell Sage Foundation, 400 pp., $39.95
I lived in Budapest until I was twentytwo, and came to New York when I was thirty. In the intervening years I traveled in Western Europe, living mostly in Paris. When I arrived in New York, there was a heat wave. I found the city filthy, noisy, in part exhilarating, and in part unspeakably ugly. I was dazzled by the views from the top of sky-scrapers, which were as breathtaking as the views of Budapest and the Danube from the top of the Buda hills. Both New York and Budapest had magnificent buildings, but large parts of both cities were built cheaply, haphazardly, heartlessly, and in haste. Undoubtedly, New York and Budapest were less elegant places than Paris. After a few days, once I found that my English was better than what I often heard around me, I felt entirely at home, for the first time in eight years.
Review, 4601 words
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