It. Is. Absolutely. Brilliant.

I’ve been to NYC a couple of times in my life. From the first second I set foot in that city, I fell completely in love with it.

Watching this series has given me a profound explanation for that love. It’s an intense place. It’s where important things have happened. It’s where America…all of it…was defined.

Watching this series made me think of how important public broadcasting is in the U.S. No one else is capable of telling the American story. Much as we’d like to believe that the United States is nothing but the sum of reality TV, it is an important cultural force on the world.

There has been greatness in US culture. Thank God for the Burns brothers. They’ve shown us the greatness that the U.S. has given the world. Not its huge military. Not the atomic bomb. Not pop music. But Jazz, Baseball, Frank Lloyd Wright, Dale Chihuly, and New York...God...New York…what better gift to the world than...New York.

It’s not easy to look at the United States today to see the incredible greatness that that nation has been capable of. Sometimes it looks like the culture has been reduced to a Big Mac. But there is greatness there. Francis Ford Coppola is an example. The Burns Brothers are another. Listen to their stories.

You’ll weep. Believe me.

Arc