Before a Seminar

At Columbia, when you have an hour and a half before your next seminar, there is always a place to go. I imagine Universities–of Nebraska or Main or Iowa or New Mexico–and think their “places to go” must be benches, perhaps made of wood with maybe a little plaque nailed to the back, placed carefully next to a well-edged lawn, sweeps of pesticidal green to numb the brain while looking over notes. I’m sure that I’m wrong in this–that other schools have their own beauty, their own interest–but I do know that in all of America there is not another University that holds captive the senses the way that Columbia does. The Architect, the journalist, the biologist, the writer–we are the attentive audience. Broadway plays its horns and tyre whirls, and Butler Library puffs its chest inhaling a city that moves forward like power, creating the very fuel of its own momentum.