Erik Pihel

Manhattan is epic. And here's the poem to prove it.

A narrative poem in traditional forms, Manhattan tells the archetypal New York story of a stranger arriving on shores of a new world. A book twenty-one years in the making, this tale of loss and wonder takes place over four days in 1995/96 just before Disney took over Times Square, five years before 9/11, and ten years before we began staring at smart phones. Today, Manhattan's sidewalks are being turned into aisles of a corporate mall as book shops, record stores, and taverns are replaced by banks, high-end clothing, and yogurt.

Take a walk back to a time when turnstiles took tokens, you didn't know when the next train was arriving, and the unseen voice in subway speakers wasn't a machine. Come along down the old side streets and, as the song says, "We won't be back til morning 'cause we're gonna take a walk/ On the sidewalks of New York."