New York City

New York City is both Willie Keith’s theatrical proving ground and the place where his private ambitions first collide with the public emergency of war. From the streets around Columbia University to a cellar nightclub on Fifty-second Street and the bright cityscape near a subway entrance, the city reflects his shifting sense of possibility while exposing how narrowly he measures events beyond himself.

Setting and Departure

On a cold, sunny morning in December 1942, Willie says goodbye to Mrs. Keith on the sidewalk near Broadway and 116th Street, among the dingy gray-and-red buildings of Columbia University. Their family Cadillac waits beside them with its motor running. Mrs. Keith has driven him from Manhasset to the midshipmen school, despite his preference for taking the train: he wants the departure to feel like going off to war, not like being escorted there by his mother. The street becomes the threshold between his familiar family life and naval service, while their disagreement makes clear that he is leaving on terms shaped partly by her resolve.

Nightlife and the War Headline

Before that departure, New York has offered Willie a small but intoxicating ascent in entertainment. At the Club Tahiti, a very dingy cellar on Fifty-second Street furnished with papier-mâché palms, dusty coconuts, and chairs turned upside down on tables, the proprietor hires him away from the Greek for ten dollars more a week. The transaction takes place on December 7, 1941. Willie emerges into the sunny street elated: he has surpassed the minimum union wage and imagines himself catching up with Cole Porter and Noel Coward.

The city’s commercial surfaces seem to confirm his success. Weather-beaten nightclub signs and enlarged photographs of performers like himself look beautiful to him. Then a newsstand headline announces the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Willie recognizes that the United States will enter the war, but he does not know where Pearl Harbor is and briefly places it on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. The news fails to rival his new engagement in his estimation; his high draft number helps him remain calm. New York thus sets private advancement beside national crisis, and Willie’s response reveals the gap between the scale of events and the scale of his attention.

The City as a Changed View

In a later encounter, Willie tries to keep a conversation alive by talking about books. After the woman leaves and disappears into the crowd before reaching the foot of the stairs, he walks away from the subway entrance with an absurd feeling of being newborn. The Roxy marquee, the dark shafts of Radio City scattered with yellow lights, restaurant signs, and darting taxicabs seem to swim in an aura of wonder. He decides that New York is beautiful and mysterious, like Bagdad.

The passage gives the city a different function from its earlier role as a ladder into show business: its familiar urban bustle becomes newly vivid after an emotionally affecting meeting. Across these scenes, New York registers Willie’s inward changes without making him suddenly worldly. The same city that magnifies his youthful career fantasies also places war within sight, while its streets and crowds give renewed intensity to an intimate encounter.