New York is a city recorded in two worlds of the archive: in Antiterra, a small, half-burned colonial city that serves as provisional capital of the new republic; in Torreluces, the 2035 megalopolis whose model covers the whole planet.
This name refers to different places in 2 worlds; the versions are not merged.
| Type | Place |
| Worlds | Antiterra; Torreluces |
| Spanish entry | Nueva York |
In Antiterra
Description
The city is “much smaller than one would expect”: twenty thousand people at most, only partly inhabited. Eight years ago a great fire, reportedly set by the prisoners of the devils, took about half the town. It remains “harassed by British troops and razed by continuous fires”, full of trenches and under fog. Twenty to thirty kilometers out lies a devastated trench field where “nobody gathered the bodies”, with the Warmonger and the pavilion of a Hessian (“gesiano”) colonel who never surrendered.
History
New York was the last English bastion on the continent, occupied seven or eight years after an earlier republican period. American troops returned to Manhattan only after the Peace Treaty; “being liberated marked the true victory”. The new flag has thirteen red and white stripes and thirteen stars.
Streets
A 1766 map shows Beaver Street (“the street of actors”), Duke, Smith, Broad (not Broadway), New (“which dies early”), Wall, King and Queen Streets and Broadway. “Wagons, pigs and young girls” roam the streets. There are inhabited cellars and Frank Stoddard’s tavern, “with a scene of Little Wench’s and women”. To the north lie Five Points, later home to gangs, and Harlem, “long ago” called Nueva Ántara.
Seat of the new order
New York is the provisional capital (for two years, before the city of Washington exists) and seat of Congress, which can be convened urgently; each region sends a representative, and George Washington must appear before it. Martial law rules. Slavery has not ended, though Black veterans of the revolution had “a kind of true liberation”. Boston, “where some lodges are founded”, is the political counterpart. New York is the center of the platform of Leo, where the shape of the democratic state is decided.
The Bank and the lodge
Congress is to decide whether to found the Bank of New York, with Trinity Church as its first acquisition; the New York Foundation, tied to paying war debts, is founded at once. Some go there “to deal with the blue Jews”. Behind the Bank works “a nefarious organization” of Masonic soldiers and notables up to Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.
Daily life
Citizens keep up cricket, horse racing, ball games and boxing. The New York Gazette covers the liberators of the Americas; Alexandria, near Mount Vernon, has local papers. It is about fifteen days before the Fourth of July. A book records the city’s riots from 1770 to 1870, and a diary called Mi Nueva Vida (“My New Life”) writes itself.
Conflicting accounts
- From Mount Vernon: 380 km and fifteen days north, or 50–60 km and one day.
- The present is given as 1784, but other records date the Bank to 1884, the Peace Treaty to 1883 and the great fire to 1976.
Open questions
- Who are the “blue Jews” and the Hessians?
- What is the nefarious organization’s name, and its link to the Boston lodges and to the new faith announced by Saint Mark?
- What is a platform, and what does being its center imply?
- Whose is the thirteen-star flag, and do the Gazette and a New York Times coexist?
In Torreluces
«New York is the New Rome.» (formula spoken by Adrian Eldritch to Lennon in the Dakota Building, before Lennon was killed)
Description
In 2035 the Megalopolis reached “its paroxysm”: its idea of future, architecture and technology reached the whole planet, and its administrative pattern, starting from the United Nations, “covers the whole planet”. In 2035 cracks open over this utopia.
Surface
It is “an idealized New York”, with mountains reproducing the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore–style Indian statues, “built as a radiant apple”. The Twin Towers never fell: they “became triplet towers” around a Louvre-style pyramid, called Pyramid Plaza, where the 2035 cracks open.
Underground and transit
The first subway tried was a closed 5-meter tunnel; another is 312 feet long. “The underground infrastructure of all New York is designed on the model of an amusement park. Coney Island is the amusement park.” Reactivated monorails run north to south to Broadway. From New York one reaches “China in an hour”.
Climate
The city is “a bit domed”: “whenever they want it’s a crystal ball where it snows”. It is recorded hot on 13 August, bare autumn a week after 15 August, and in winter with snow “mixed with filth”.
North zone and communities
The north zone resembles Harlem, with a “gang attitude” and even Los Angeles gangs. The father of Shawarma led the Arab community until the persecutions after “the ninth threshold”.
Places and emergencies
The Lethal Chamber is on First Avenue; a rented premises stands at Redcat Avenue and Perizo Street (also “62341 Pelizo Street”). In an emergency, lights are cut on purpose and announced (“go back to your homes, fear bombings”), a total no-fly zone applies, and “a cordon, firefighters, ambulance, police, forensics” deploy.
Layers of New York
The city appears as stacked layers: 1870, after the civil war; Christmas 1906, a memory in which Olimpo appears; 1974 and its nightclub, where Olimpo also was; the “really rough” 1970s and better 1980s; a rain-and-neon 1980s New York of another dimension; and utopian 2035. To a being who lived on the island before colonization it was said: “the city was built around you”.
Conflicting accounts
- Heat to bare autumn in nine days: a whim of the dome, or a calendar out of step with ours.
- Alaska is 2,000 km away in one itinerary, 3,400 miles in another.
- New Rome may be another name for the city, or something else: the name also appears tied to Centurion (“for the new Rome, the fall of the Tiratus”).
Open questions
- What was the ninth threshold, if the towers “were never destroyed until now”?
- What are the 2035 cracks, and what happens on 15 August 2035?
- Who decides when it snows under the dome?
- What connects the layers, and is the pre-colonial being still there?