Spring Break: experienced absence of nature

For Spring Break, I went to New York City. I have never been there before, so when I arrived I was overwhelmed by the impression: “wow, there are so many buildings, so many skyscrapers.” This may sound a bit naive, but it is a different thing being amongst these buildings or seeing a picture of the skyline. Pictures can never replace the real experience. I also thought that the skyscrapers would make navigation easy. Misthought. There are so many high buildings that they hide each other. I felt very small compared to them, but small in a different way than I feel when I think of wilderness. Another aspect of the huge buildings: I could not see the sky when I was inside. Every morning, it seemed to be grey outside. I had to go to the window and look up straight to see a small fraction of the sky.

Even the river was rather part of the city than the city part of the surrounding landscape and nature. In fact, I experienced an almost complete absence of nature, not to mention wilderness. No balance between land and humans as Leopold suggests it.
Normally living at the edge of a small town, where the forest begins behind our garden, I sometimes sneered at the idea that some kids do not know where the milk comes from or that carrots grow in the earth. Now, I can understand this better. And this makes me sad. It makes me sad that there are (perhaps) places where a connection to nature is so enormously neglected that one can almost forget that something like Nature does even exist. New York is so much “City” and so little “Nature.” Though I was really impressed by New York, intrigued by the cultural opportunities, I missed nature. This sounds sentimental but is true.
Two things, however, have shown me that even the New Yorkers need some places of rest. First, there is Central Park, of course. I liked Central Park so much, I enjoyed that there was space, green space with plants and trees instead of the buildings which created some feeling of narrowness, despite their huge heights. But Central Park, though the “green lung” of the city, is completely artificial. Every tree stands where it is meant to be. Nothing is left to chance. Anyway, I was glad that there is some place as Central Park at all.

The second thing is Coney Island. In a small information center, there was this wall chart explaining the history of Coney Island. One sentence especially attracted my attention: “Coney Island’s greatest attraction: a magical, unspoiled natural environment of pine and juniper forest and pure white sand dunes, and glistening ocean.” Little is left from this natural attraction. It made me happy that they poetically stated nature to be the gorgeous main attraction; though again, it was sad to see how run-down this area is nowadays: a lonely Ferris wheel, fences, and constructions.

All this shows me: no matter how “city-ish” we live, we need some place where nature is visible, perceptible. Otherwise, the connection to nature can become completely unbalanced.