What city walking experiences do you have in common with the writer? What in your experience is different from what he wrote about? What do you think of the power of serendipity to “expose our commonalities,” as he puts it?

I live in Brooklyn surrounding by low-rise buildings and residential houses which is a quite diverse place. Brooklyn’s population is made up of different immigrants. It means there are so many different living style within 500 square miles. I can buy Mexican food for breakfast closed by the train station when I go to school. I can do exercise in the gym room few blocks away from my house. Lots of trees standing along two sidewalks that allow me to watch the falling leaves during the Fall and appreciate them growing back in the Spring. Same neighbors pass by every day become a scenery line of my life. Brooklyn is a beautiful place to explore without overcrowded traffic.
I saw the common scene in the street with Garnette Cadogan in Due North when I walked to the park three blocks away from my house. There is a restaurant with small bar and plant a lot of pretty flowers around the wall outside the door. The owner put some tables and chairs outside to allow people to hangout. There are a lot of people gather together to watch World Cup in the restaurant and holding bears in their hands. A loud cheer came up when their favorite team won. Even though I was not a part of them, I still felt happy when I heart they laugh. They don’t know each other at the first begin, but they can share their stories and the opinions about the politics. I think this is a city’s energy and gift.
The power of serendipity to “expose our commonalities” should be a positive attitude that we have toward to the life. We embrace the happiness and sadness in our life, and our happiness can be conveyed and sadness can be reduced with sharing to other people.

What city walking experiences do you have in common with the writer? What in your experience is different from what he wrote about? What do you think of the power of serendipity to “expose our commonalities,” as he puts it?

The Brooklyn Navy Yard is the old industrial shipyard area that only one street away from where I live. I had been live in this neighborhood for almost eight years, and this area has changed a lot through years. When the first year that I lived here and walked down on the street, I were barely seeing people walking on the street since the area wasn’t well develop yet. Wasted buildings and factories were all along the street, and most common scene was just trucks and cars that went in and out of the factories.

Nowadays, Brooklyn Navy Yard had been reusing old buildings and factories to develop commercial area, as well as the DUMBO has been prosperity that brings a lot more people to this area. So as I have an walking experience on the street, I could feel the positive atmosphere that is in common with Cadogan: some people are jogging, some people are walking with their dogs, tourists are visiting the new look of this area. And sometimes it will hold food fair in the park that invite and gather people from the neighborhoods and visitors. The different between Cadogan and my experience is he interacted with people during his walking experience, and I didn’t have that kind of experience except visitors asking about the ways.

When Cadogan wrote the power of “serendipity to expose our commonalities”, I think as human being, we all share the similar wishes, goals and life that we want, but most people were just lack of interact with other people and didn’t have the similar experience as other people did. And we will realize we all alike once we have the experience and interact with others.