POE_05-45

Federico García Lorca sitting on the sundial at Columbia University. New York. / FGL Foundation
Federico García Lorca sitting on the sundial at Columbia University. New York. / FGL Foundation

Federico de Onís enrolled Lorca at Columbia University and put him up in Furnald Hall. From his room he writes to his family: “The University is a prodigy. It is situated beside the Hudson River, in the heart of the city, on Manhattan Island, which is the best, very close to the large avenues (…) My room is on the ninth floor and overlooks the large sports field, with green grass and statues (…). It would be silly for me to express the immensity of the skyscrapers and the traffic. There’s no words that can describe them. In three of these buildings you can fit the whole of Granada. They are boxes that can hold 30,000 people” (June 28 1929).