Home is where the Harlem is

I fought the subway, and the subway won. After 6 months of hour long commutes and too many late-night waiting for the train which never comes sessions and many other adventures, I threw the towel in at the Manhattan Transport Authority (and wished it had been something heavier). My living situation in Brooklyn was also never really something I was happy with. I will miss the burrough, though, and my cool roommates Nate and Jessica, and the neighbourhood of bars and restaurants, and Prospect Park, and the fabulous Park Slope Co-op.

I am really glad I had the experience of living there at all.

For the end of my stay in New York, I am living on 142nd Street, in an area of Harlem known as Hamilton Heights. Its two subway stops north of Columbia on the 1-Train, and only three subway stops from Times Square on the express A-Train around the corner. Most days, I ride my bike to Columbia. Here is my neighbourhood on Google Maps. I have a room with a lot of light on the top floor of an older (pre WWII) building on a quiet street. My flat mate, Kay, is from Texas and has a Texan's laidbackness and generosity.

The area here is completely different to Park Slope, which can be characterized (or caricatured) as where you go when you're earning very well and have, or are about to have, spawn, none of which is true of me. Hamilton Heights has a strong Dominican and other Latino population; there is a lot of life on the streets. Gentrification is happening here too, but more slowly than in the part of Harlem with which I am familiar (south of 125th Street).