Author Archives: Elmer

135ST-Harlem

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The street I live in is 135ST in Harlem, Manhattan next to the Hudson River. I have lived here all my life and I don’t really look at my street as anything special–just your average New York City street. I live in an apartment in an apartment building, as most if not all do in Manhattan. Everywhere around me is just apartment buildings, most are between 5 and 6 stories high but there is this one building that is probably more than 30 stories high and we all call it 3333. With all the people that live nearby it is sometimes hard to find a close by parking space unless you’re lucky or you spend an hour looking–thank god I don’t own a car right?

Around my block there’s a bunch of fast food chains such as McDonald’s, Subway’s, Burger King(although this one has just closed down recently), Dunkin Donuts, etc. Just across the street on broadway you have multiple Deli’s, my uncle’s restaurant, a couple other restaurants, a fish store, a couple barber shops, a laundromat, and a few other small stores. You go another block up to 137 and you have found yourself at the 1 train station, which is what most people around where I live take as public transportation. That is not necessarily horrible or anything but the next closest train that isn’t the 1 train is about a 15 minute walk from my building (to the A/C train).

The best thing about where I live is being right next to the Hudson River. The view is pretty great, there is nothing to complain about and I often find myself just staring at New Jersey or at downtown Manhattan. Another very awesome detail is that there are multiple parks/playgrounds around here. The one I most frequent is Riverbank Park because it has everything. Plenty of basketball courts(although it does get very crowded sometimes), baseball fields, soccer/football field, track field, rollerblading/ice rink, playgrounds for the little kids, pool, sprinkler, lawn, picnic tables, and best of all an awesome view. The only bad thing about Riverbank Park I must say is that in some areas it stinks like poop, and that may be because of the sewer treatment or the Hudson’s water, not too sure but I do know to try and avoid those areas.

A lot of the buildings around me are getting renovated. As they are painted again on the outside you can really tell the uniform that they wanted to show with the buildings. What I am trying to say is that my building along with the rest of the block looks the same, except for 3333, and even across the street they look all the same yet a different color than my building, and its the same for each block around.

The people that live around here is mostly blacks and hispanics. But more recently I have seen a lot of white and asian people move in (mostly into the 3333) which is fine to me it’s not like I mind i prefer diversity.

I forgot to mention how noisy my street is–thankfully I was reminded as I was writing this. There’s a bunch of bus stops around so you hear buses come and go, also the train station nearby has tracks that go above ground so you can constantly hear the train every few minutes, and a lot of tour buses pass by here too, of which I have no clue why since this is not really a tourist kind of street. This is all I can say about my street.