Geometry and Anguish

Mural on Lafayette Street

"The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful  slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape."
Federico García Lorca, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations

Dawn in New York

Morningside Park

"Dawn in New York whimpers
down the huge stairs
seeking in the chaff
flowers of sketched anguish."
Federico García Lorca, Poet in New York

Wall Street

Wall Street

"The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There as nowhere else you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six."
Federico García Lorca, Deep Song and Other Prose

Senegal

Mural on Lafayette Street

"I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world's great lie. New York is Senegal with machines.”
Federico García Lorca, Lorca: Obra Completa/ Lorca: Complete Work