futurebird's Diaryland Diary
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one city
From 166th street you can see all of park avenue...
Today I did the shopping. Since I was feeling a bit bored I wandered around Harlem, walking east on 125th st. I came, at last, to a huge, monstrous grocery store called �PATHMARK.� It was the biggest grocery store I�d ever seen in Manhattan, and, to be honest, it was kinda scary. People were in a big rush in there, almost as if they didn�t buy the food RIGHT NOW it would be gone. I ended up getting rather badly busied by a little old lady speeding down the cleaning things lane with her shopping cart. She didn�t even say she was sorry, but just speed off in to the produce section like nothing happened. I know better than to go in there again! I have know idea why those people were so excited about it...
Then I walked south on lexington to 116th st where I found an open-air bazaar around Malcolm X blvd. It was a bunch of west African crafts. I had been thinking of getting a wash basin and gourd (my bathroom is very dark and I�d much rather wash my face by the windows) So I managed to find one-- I was very pleased with the price and it has a lovely pattern burnt in to the surface, which was more than I expected to be able to find.
On my way back to central Harlem I crossed park avenue and from 116th street you could see all the way in to the city and down in to the upper east side. It was very odd to realise that it was all connected-- east Harlem seems like it�s 10,000 miles from the upper east side-- hell, it�s completely different from central and west Harlem. I�m glad the weather is warming up. I�ll get to do more walking around. I like to look for the place where one neighbourhood changes in to another, some times you can pinpoint it... right down to the sidewalk tile.
020408_34.html - 2002-04-08
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