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            New York City claims the title: the Big Apple.  I discovered the metaphor to be true in a surprising way.  Every community in the state is the cambium in which nourishment flows to the port at the mouth of the Hudson River.  The term fits the city and the state of New York in ways that many New Yorkers don’t even realize.

            The skin of the apple is the protective outer core, and portrays the fruit to the rest of the world.  It makes the apple attractive to members of the ecosystem who can come and make sure the fruit reproduces and replenishes its species.  The apple’s outer layer  is the tough outer core that is beautiful to look at as it hides the bruises incurred in the apple’s fall.  The skin is the New York we see in movies and television shows.  In the news, we see the recovery from tragedy of the attack on the World Trade Center, we see major events and Yankee games.  We don’t see what’s under that tough skin.

            The flesh of the apple feeds the seed when it is planted and begins to grow.  It is the sweetness that we taste as we chew vigorously through the tough outside layer.  It is this nourishment that gives us a deeper appreciation of the fruit.  We found the sweet flesh of the Big Apple in how people came, how they survived, and how they conquered their environment.  Upstairs in the Old Hotel and Generous Enemies glowed with the tales of New York residents dealing with difficult situations in their lives caused by situations out of their control.  Tours of the Tenement Museum and the African Burial Ground showed us the resilience of the people who came to the city under extreme conditions and found ways to persevere.  Reading The Island at the Center of the World and touring Ellis Island revealed the determination of peoples who stepped off a boat, in two dissimilar eras in New York’s history, and showed those people using that determination to survive their world.  Devouring The Great Bridge, about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and hearing the stories of the early days of the women’s rights movement in Seneca Falls showed us how New Yorkers used new ideas to make their world a better place to live.  This is the flesh, the part that makes that apple enjoyable, yet necessary for the nourishment of a sprouting seed.

            What’s left of the apple?  The core.  The thing that holds the fruit together and, since it houses the seeds,  provides the opportunity for the apple to continue its survival.  Tales of the Dutch settlement, the English taking over, the Tories and Whigs in the Revolution making certain the city thrives, all feed the history that holds New York together, the reason everyone else could come in later years and find a way to eke out a living.  Stories of Ticonderoga and Saratoga showed how men ensured New York would remain a thriving port for the New Country on the eastern seaboard of the New World.

            The skin, flesh, and core all work together to protect and nourish the seed that ensures continuation of the species.  The stories in the readings, stories seen in the museums, stories heard at the historic sites, and our own stories in the discussions and blog posts shared with our colleagues on this trip, all of these stories contributed to an understanding of the seeds that ensure the continuation of New York City, the Big Apple, as a cornerstone of our past and a base for our future.

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