Different cities boil within each of us. There is so much we hate—the dirt, the poverty, the prejudice; there is so much we love—the one or two friendships that somehow crossed boundaries, the libraries where we joined ourselves to the dreams of others, the places where we composed dreams of our own, the museums where we learned how to defeat time, certain streets, alleys, staircases, apartment-house roofs, certain radio stations we would listen to deep into the night, certain newspapers we read as if they were a testament to the ages. We remember the terrors and joys of our early urban
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