Cry in public and in New York.
In one of the most repeated chapters of How I Met Your Mother, Ted Mosby and company decided to teach Robin (and the audience) how you became a real New Yorker: you had to have seen Woody Allen once or several times (so you weren't impressed anymore), you had to have stolen a taxi from someone who needed it more than you, killed a cockroach with your own bare hand and you should have crying on the subway without caring what people thought.
The summary was that New York made you someone without scruples or feelings. Or, at times, in someone with too many feelings enough to burst into tears in public without expecting a word of comfort, or a look of disapproval.
"I cried because I thought I was leaving town..."
New York is exciting, it is a roller coaster of emotions and sensations that causes these psychic spirals. kate ray she realized it a few years ago and decided to geolocate those places that formed the emotional map of her life in the city on the platform crying in public, in which anyone can pin their most passionate or apathetic moment with the help of Google Maps.
“I went to college in New York and then I stayed here. I started noticing that I was repaving the streets of the city with different memories,” Kate tells TRAVELER by email. “A particular corner triggered terrible memories for me, but over time, that same place had been the scene of an intense conversation and took on a different meaning. I wanted to create this project to record my personal and emotional map of the city”.
Carrie Bradshaw would need her own map.
All cities have their own emotional maps for the people who live in them, says Kate Ray. The difference is that in New York everything is lived more from doors out. “It seems that intense personal moments happen more in parks/sidewalks/subways than in houses/offices/cars”, she reasons.
“I once broke up with someone over nine stops on a packed subway car on a Saturday night. We started in Manhattan and when we got to Brooklyn he wanted to quit. Our last hour together we were also very close to a dozen strangers.
Although she admits that today she cries less than when she started thinking about creating the map, "back in 2012", she still considers "New York as the best place to cry." "Is that thing of anonymity in public places which frees you to cry knowing that no one will try to talk to you,” she replies. “Someone once told me that he was crying on the subway and no one said anything to him, but when he got out of it an old lady gave him a handkerchief. That's the kind of quiet camaraderie that I love about New York."
Kate's personal project has ended up being a map open to all those who need to map their emotions: Using Google Maps you can find the exact point where you broke up with your partner, met your partner, had the best one night stand or had the worst drunk of the century. Crying in Public is not only a map of the heart, but of indelible memories.
You can also add your memories.
The best place to cry in New York?
"My favorite place is Williamsburg Bridge. A beautiful sight, especially one as well documented as the New York skyline, elevates your melancholy to the level of movie or novel drama. Something you need to wallow in.”
The worst place to cry in New York?
"It would be anywhere that the person you're trying not to cry over is in front of you. Trying not to cry is the surest way to end up crying."