"I'll take Manhattan . . . " Observations of a Miniature City

New York City is actually a conglomeration of five “boroughs” that collectively make up the urban landscape: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Over the years the residents of each borough have identified their own as the most desirable and semi-seriously denigrated the amenities of the other four. One thing every New Yorker can agree on, though, is that Manhattan is the most expensive and lively of the five, with its skyscrapers, Broadway theater area, financial district and, of course, beautiful Central Park.

Bisbee, too, is a city made up of five boroughs: Old Bisbee, Lowell, Warren, San Jose, and Naco. Technically, Naco is a separate town, but it comes down at the end of the long, drawn out sprawl that starts at the top of the Mule Mountain Pass, flows past the giant Lavender Pit, and down to the border with Mexico. We live in Old Bisbee, the Manhattan of this miniature Gotham, where the major commercial development occurred in the early twentieth century and peaked around the 1920s.

This is the main tourist draw, with the colorful storefronts and a winding main street. Jewelry stores, art studios, antique shops, and other businesses are positioned between restaurants and bars, all of which spring to life on the weekends when the tourists plan their visits. We will in future posts elaborate on how this section of the town strikes us.

Lowell is Staten Island, a strange isolated single street of mostly abandoned businesses just on the other side of the Pit. It is mostly owned by one person, and its most famous destination is the Bisbee Breakfast Club.

Next comes Warren, the Brooklyn section of Bisbee where most working people live and the location of a vintage baseball park, a lumber/hardware store, the Dairy Queen, and the little Copper Queen Hospital which advertises it is certified “stroke ready.” (I hope I never have to test that boast.)

San Jose is the Queens section, a sprawling area of older homes interspersed with a couple of small strip malls, a fairly modern Safeway store, and the Ace Hardware franchise.

The Bronx, which has a reputation of being somewhat rough among New Yorkers, finds its parallel with Naco, a small community that straddles the border and looks like the gateway to a concentration camp thanks to the razor-wire decorations mandated by our insane president.