“Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns … tell me if the lovers are losers … tell me if any get more than the lovers” (Carl Sandburg)

 

What makes the heart of a city? A central location, a cluster of tall buildings, a confluence of people? Is it a downtown, a centreville? Is the heart of a city where the city began, or where it’s reached? Is it an emotional centre, where people feel a unity, a sense of belonging, or is it simply a site of function, a vital organ in the city’s body, where traffic comes and goes, depositing people like so many blood cells in red and white?

I walk through the downtown, waiting for something to pull at my heartstrings, but it’s my feet that are pulled – off of the sidewalk, and down a grassy path. At the end, I find nothing: a sign, a cheap slogan, in black, red, and white. I pass it by.