The Sympathy Tour of New York City
In Olivia Sudjic’s new novel SYMPATHY, narrator Alice Hare rapidly becomes obsessed with the twin grids of the Instagram feed and the streets of New York, the city of her birth. She says of Manhattan,
“The sight of the city was like a machine I could not isolate the significance of any part of. Later, when I had learnt my way around by walking, I could situate myself when I stood in that same spot by looking down… The city would, in a few months, become a series of familiar routes, an equation I could begin to unpick.“
So to introduce you to Alice and her version of New York, we created a SYMPATHY tour, putting dates with her boyfriend, all-day walks through the city, and meetings with Mizuko, a Columbia professor whose life seems to mirror Alice’s in strange and surprising ways, into a Google map for you to click through from afar or see for yourself.
The other day, I visited a few particularly important locations, starting at the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park, where Alice’s mother meets the surrogate who she hopes will give birth to Alice. And of course, what better place to bring a book narrated by a character named Alice Hare?
On Alice’s first date with her boyfriend Dwight, they walk to the viewing platform of Belvedere Castle. Without a “Tech Man” telling me “things about himself that should have made him sound urbane, but did the opposite,” I could just enjoy the nice view of the park.
From Central Park, Dwight takes Alice to Harlem for dinner, drinks, and dancing. Instead, take the train to Morningside Heights, where Mizuko lives and most of the action of the book takes place. If I had really wanted to do this tour the Alice way, I would’ve walked the 30+ blocks, but in the interest of time, I just took the train from the Museum of Natural History up to 110th Street.
My first stop was the Hungarian Pastry Shop, which Alice recognizes on Mizuko’s Instagram feed “from the red paint on the wall beneath the rail and the crispy strata of the cake.” I ended up having to take a table outside – Alice doesn’t exaggerate about the “steady stream of Columbia students who were territorial about their work spots and writing nooks.” As it happened, I sat next to a professor and an undergrad, who, after I took the following photo, had a conversation about the vapidity of social media. 👌
From there I made my way to Columbia, where Mizuko is a professor in the MFA program. Passing the landmarks Alice sees on her walks to Mizuko’s apartment – the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and a coffee shop called Nussbaum & Wu – the book becomes that much more real and I start to feel as if I really am following Alice.
I stop briefly in front of Butler Library, where Alice keeps Mizuko company as she works.
The next stop is Sakura Park, which Alice describes as
“the small park right by where I had lived beside the school of music on Claremont Avenue. It was green and canopied by Linden trees. Somehow it was quiet and I stopped hearing the big red New York Sightseeing buses rumble past. When I lay in the grass beside the pagoda I had a vivid recollection of being tiny. Of looking at blades of grass as an object of fascination, broad as my finger nails.”
After looping back through Morningside Park, I stopped at Miss Mamie’s, a Southern-style restaurant that Alice goes to because she decides it will look good on her Instagram.
With the sun beginning to set, I decided to leave Alice Hare’s New York and head back to mine, but that doesn’t mean you have to. You can check out the full Google Maps tour here or pick up your own copy of Olivia Sudjic’s 🌸SYMPATHY🌸, out today!
– Emily Wilkerson, HMH social media team
