This play, which was a huge hit in the late '50s, was basically a rehash of Romeo and Juliet, set in 1950s New York City. At that time, NYC was experiencing lots of gang-related crime, at a level that would be considered small potatoes today, but back then was highly topical. The musical's fantastic score was written by Leonard Bernstein, and contained many songs which have stood the test of the time and become American classics. The lyrics were equally fantastic, having been written by Stephen Sondheim, in what was his first big Broadway success.
One of these songs, called Somewhere, is a duet exchanged between star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria; Tony being of European descent ("white"); Maria's parents are from Puerto Rico. The song describes their aspirations to live life on their own in better surroundings than those they are forced to endure in Manhattan's gritty West Side.
In that song are these lines:
There's a place for us
Somewhere a place for us
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us somewhere
As a teenager who grew up with this music, those lines were a throwaway, barely noticed happy talk.
But as I got older and observed the rise of the "suburbs are awful" movement within the left, those words began to develop an ironic resonance for me. What do they describe? Where can one find "peace and quiet and open air" ? Where did millions of young New Yorkers move out to as soon as they were financially able to do so, back in the '50s and '60s? That's right: the suburbs. These were rapidly being built on Long Island, in New Jersey and Connecticut, and in Upstate New York at the time West Side Story was in development.
Both Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim were very, very liberal people. Bernstein famously hosted a big dinner party and fundraiser for the Black Panthers with a huge number of NYC's glitteratti in attendance; this party was described in exquisite detail in Tom Wolfe's article Radical Chic, which was published in New York magazine in 1970.
So here we have in one small way — but also I would argue in a very big way — liberalism coming full circle, eating its own tail in a self-contradictory circle.
The solution they accepted and advocated in the '50s has become anathema to them decades later.
If you see ground or grass in a city it just means it is public property that someone else has to care for.
Very well said.
I was raised in So CA and as a young kid literally thousands of small homes were being built on land that was formally agricultural land, mainly citrus groves.
They were built to accommodate not only veterans after the war but urban sprawl from the larger cities.
At that time CA wasn’t a leftist controlled commie state, sad how it’s changed because it was a wonderful place to live then.