Jennifer Arin | February 2011

"Books are the treasured wealth of the world," Henry Thoreau wrote, "and the fit inheritance of generations and nations." Adorned with clusters of sculpted golden coins, this line from Walden is also engraved on a mid-town Manhattan sidewalk, right in front of one of the bailed-out banks. Was its placement meant to be subversive? Could the literary experts and librarians who chose this excerpt for Library Way—a series of ninety-six bronzed plaques with literary quotations—be a devious bunch? I rather hoped so.

Of course, whether Thoreau's perspective has changed the views of any high-powered financiers remains unknown. What's certain, though, is that the plaques which run along East 41st Street, in a two-block stretch from Fifth to Park Avenue, fulfill the purpose of literature in public places: to bring into the community compelling expressions of language and thought. In the case of Library Way, those literary selections come from a wonderful spectrum of writers, such as José Martí­: the 19th-century Cuban activist and philosopher, who warned, "The knowledge of different literatures frees one from the tyranny of a few."

Martí­­ would appreciate the different literatures of Library Way. Walking forward a few steps, and back about 300 years, I came across Rene Descartes's assertion that "the reading of good books is like a conversation with the best men of past centuries." The best women, too, as Kate Chopin's inclusion confirms: "The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings." Chopin was addressing women's struggles, and the resistance to miscegenation, in late-19th-century Louisiana. If their lives had overlapped, Chopin would surely have felt a sense of kinship with Lucille Clifton. In her typically informal style—"they ask me to remember / but they want me to remember / their memories / and i keep on remembering / mine"—Clifton was responding to a request from a former Maryland governor, who'd asked Clifton, then the state's poet laureate, to write about "Our Happy Colonial Days." As Clifton put it in an NPR interview, referring to herself and, no doubt, her ancestors, "I am an African American woman who had... maybe one happy colonial day...probably during Christmas."

Some causes merit being fought for. Others just seem silly, as when writers bicker over which literary style (invariably, their own) is rightful heir to literature's throne. I've always found it disturbing that certain writers and literary theorists dictate in what way "creative writing" should be creative—which takes a measure of creativity out of the act. What a relief, then, to come across this lighthearted, even self-deprecating tidbit from E.B. White, in his "Letter to James Thurber": "I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens." It's hard to imagine why White, a man who would write so charmingly about mice and pigs (Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web), found fowl and fiction so depressing. Maybe he was taking an absurdist cue from Beckett's Waiting for Godot, which also graces one of the plaques:

Vladimir: What do they say?
Estragon: They talk about their lives.
Vladimir: To have lived is not enough for them.
Estragon: They have to talk about it.
Vladimir: To be dead is not enough for them.
Estragon: They have to talk about it.

Fortunately, this musing is more accurate than absurd. If we didn't prattle on about our thoughts and, better, write them down for posterity, humanity's ideas and accomplishments would be lost. We face no information shortage in this Information Age, but we've pushed to the sidelines what great books provide, and what Library Way's panels let us experience: "the wide-ranging and inspiring worlds of literary invention...a fitting pathway to the front door of the Library," Dr. Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, wrote to me in an e-mail.

By phone, David Roskin, the Director of Public Affairs of the Grand Central Partnership, told me he often receives calls about Library Way, from people "stopped in their tracks" by it. Roskin's comment comes as a relief. I'd feared that these literary panels risked a fate worse than that of a strictly reared child: being neither heard nor seen. While some of the plaques shone brightly, others were darkened by city soot and cigarette butts: signs of indifference, or maybe just of the considerable crowds. One tourist who wrote about the plaques on the "Yelp" website cautioned, "Anyone intent on studying these for more than a brief moment is advised to do so on a Sunday, when foot traffic is minimal." I wish I'd read his suggestion before my own visit. Office workers on their lunch hour, and just about everyone else, rushed about, bumping into me when I took more than a New York minute to read Isak Dinesen's ever timely line, "People work much in order to secure the future." Likewise, as I tried to enjoy an excerpt from Wallace Stevens's "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"—"I do not know which to prefer, / The beauty of inflections / or the beauty of innuendos"—a driver honked relentlessly at the car in front, shouting in an ongoing loop, "Move it up! Move it up!"

Several people, in fact, acted at odds with the very words they must frequently step over. Marianne Moore's poem, "The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing," seemed deeply ironic beneath the soles of a carefully coiffed man screaming into his cell phone, "I hate my partner!" Ditto for the fellow who literally followed in his footsteps: a twenty-something with a Brooklyn accent barking into his own phone, "If the old guy had hit him, I would have beat the fuck out of him."

Far more enchanting was the man of retirement age, and Woody Allen-ish appearance, studying each plaque. He stopped a few yards behind me to pore over a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier: "I love the old melodious lays / Which softly melt the ages through, / The songs of Spenser's golden days, / Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, / Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew."

When the man and I ended up side by side over the plaque, he confessed, "I never noticed these before, even though I've walked down this street so many times." He paused. "It makes me think what a great poet Whittier was." For a moment, it seemed he was remembering verses he'd read long ago. Or maybe he'd just perused the nearby plaque with John Ruskin's words about "the books of the hour and the books of all time."

Walking away, I thought about New York's own past, when immigrants who came to the city to build a new life sometimes believed the sparkling pavements held diamonds. Though their learning otherwise must have been a blow, the literary gems in our sidewalks now, Thoreau might argue, are as valuable as any precious stone.

AWP