Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Monolithic and regal, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch towers over pedestrians and traffic at Grand Army Plaza. The bus roars down Eastern Parkway to Crown Heights, past the Brooklyn Public Library and the Brooklyn Museum. I’m with a friend who has made the long trip from Staten Island. “I’m hungry,” he says. “Staten Island’s so far. Think we can get some Jamaican fare in Crown Heights?”
If the neighborhood lives up to its reputation, we’ll be tasting Caribbean spices soon.
We leave the bus and stand on the Parkway. It’s a pleasant spot: Trees and rows of three story brownstones and pre-war apartment buildings line the long road. We cross Eastern Parkway, going south. Right away we’re in the middle of a busy scene of street vendors and discount convenience stores. The bottom of my friend’s right sandal is tearing off with each step. We think maybe we’ll find cheap sandals in one of these stores.
Inside, there are rows of T-shirts and shorts; soap, brooms, even priced-down air conditioners line the shelves. Slow, indulgent reggae plays.


“Negative,” my friend says. No sandals.
We move on. Walking along the street—somewhere around New York Avenue—we notice people doing weekend shopping. Children chase each other down the block yelling and laughing. At a corner a mother scolds her child. Her language is austere, even frightening.
“You see this stern Caribbean parenting,” my friend says. I warn him not to generalize, but from our perspective the evidence is there. We’ve seen more than one parent very harshly berate a child.

As we walk, the neighborhood becomes overwhelmingly quiet. On the upper jambs of front doors we see mezuzot—Jewish religious objects placed at the entrances to homes (and rooms inside the home). This must be the orthodox, largely Lubavitch section of Crown Heights—a community for which the neighborhood is famous. Down a tree-lined side street we find a building with Hebrew letters over the door. Under the Hebrew is an English translation: “Beth Rivkah Schools Lubavitch.”

Rivkah (Rebecca) is a matriarch. This must be a girls-only yeshiva—a school of Jewish religious learning.
It’s Saturday—the Jewish Sabbath—so we’re not surprised that the streets are so still. Occasional groups of men wearing black suits and black hats stroll down the sidewalks. On one porch a middle-aged woman in a tight headdress, long sleeves, and a long skirt reads a newspaper. On many homes a banner hangs that says, in Hebrew, “Welcome, King the Messiah.” This message regards the Lubavitch Hasidic belief that the late Hasidic leader Menachem Mendel Schneerson is the messiah.

The layout of the neighborhood is pleasant, peaceful; architecturally homogenous: You see straight streets of two-story, red-brick, single-family homes with front yards about ten feet deep.
As we continue down a block between Brooklyn and New York Avenues, a multi-generational group of Lubavitch Hasids is walking toward us. There are an elderly man who looks to be in his eighties, a middle-aged man, a young man in his early twenties, and an adolescent boy. They’re all speaking energetically in Russian. They are garrulous with each other. A voice rises; one throws up his arms over his head; another grabs the shoulders of the ancient man and, smiling, fires speedy, animated sentences—his voice resounds, slashing the block’s quiet.
We turn a corner to find an RV parked on the street. On the driver side there’s a large picture of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, serious and sage in his voluminous white beard and black hat. Beside him, the message Moshiach [the messiah] is coming Now! Beside that message are the words MITZVAH TANK. Then there’s the license plate: TANK ONE.

We walk north across Eastern Parkway. There are no more Hasids; no more black hats and beards; no more Yiddish and Russian and Hebrew characters on the buildings. This is now a neighborhood of Caribbean immigrants. Walking down the street we hear what sounds like the English dialects of the West Indies. Groups of men and teenagers talk loudly on the stoops of buildings. Kids play catch with a football on the sidewalk. I can’t ignore the feeling that people seem to be watching my friend and me. There is a burdening tension here. I sense that we are seen through aggressive stares. I ask my friend about this. He feels the same unwanted attention. And I wonder whether this feeling is valid, or whether it’s a product of our unfamiliarity with the neighborhood.

Since my friend hasn’t eaten, we wander into an Associated Supermarket. An employee asks me if we’ve been skateboarding. We tell him no. His accent is heavy; he sounds Jamaican.
“You see these days a lot of the black kids is skateboarding. But the white kids has been doin’ it since the eighties,” he says.
He goes on to explain: Because black kids are new to skateboarding, as a rule, they aren’t as good as people who’ve been doing it for a decade or more. So it’s very dangerous, and he thinks they should bike instead. Neither my friend nor I are skateboarders, so we can’t really offer opinions. We say goodbye. My friend buys a peach, and we’re back outside.
There is a big block party on Lincoln Place. Monstrous speakers are set up angled toward the street. They blast reggae. Tied to metal banisters and street lamps are balloons in all colors. Kids running and smiling and playing. And the reggae—the loudest reggae in New York must be on Lincoln Place.
Finally, a fish market. My friend orders the fish and rice plate. When it’s ready, I see the server put one, then two fish on the plate. That’s pretty generous, I’m thinking. Then the server throws on a third! The plate is heaping with fried fish, and then yellow rice. All for five dollars. We sit on a bench on Eastern Parkway, and my friend devours the feast.
Later, after we’ve left the neighborhood, we’re discussing the places and the people of Crown Heights. My friend says, “You know, I got the sense that at any moment the shit could hit the fan.” I want to disagree, but I can’t: Being honest with myself, my thoughts return to that encompassing sense of tension.

Sunset Park, Brooklyn

After the graveyard; after the tombstones and the elaborate monuments and mausoleums of Greenwood Cemetery, we have bustling Sunset Park. Stands where you can buy pupusas and quesadillas. Markets where yucca and chayote are as ubiquitous as apples and pears. This is a neighborhood for all senses. Children and parents, adults and the elderly, people representing three generations stroll down Fifth Avenue. Some shop, some browse, some argue, some discuss. The street corners are filled with an urban ebullience.
I am with my cousin, and we agree: Sunset Park enchants us both.

At the corner of 45 Street and Fifth Avenue a stocky woman shoves a pamphlet my way. It’s in Spanish, and the woman sees the confusion on my face.
“You can’t read it?” she asks.
I tell her it’s fine; I’d like to learn Spanish.
“English. Here,” she says, and bluntly pushes another pamphlet into my hand. Satan the god of this world, it reads. I put both the Spanish and English versions into my pocket.
Around a nearby corner the commercial bustle eases and gives way to a block celebrating the dry, sunny day. Hydrants are open down the street. Eager kids yell and run through the cold showers of water. On the sidewalk, residents have set up chairs outside their two-story, turn-of-the-century row houses. The smoke of barbecues wafts up the street’s slope. A group of friends plays football on the asphalt, the young athletes splashing through the puddles from the open hydrants.
After a tour up and down Fifth and Sixth Avenues and many side streets, my cousin and I decide to try more avenues east. We walk down shady streets of pre-war single-family homes, all nestled next to each other. The occasional American flag flaps in the hot breeze. Then we’re at Eighth Avenue, and the Spanish signs are gone.
Businesses advertise in Mandarin. The avenues are much, much quieter when compared to their counterparts to the immediate west.
“I want ‘Boba’ tea,” my cousin says.
We walk into a bodega that advertises smoothie-looking drinks on a poster. My cousin asks for “Boba” tea.
“You mean ‘Babo’ tea?” the clerk asks.
My cousin says, “Boba, Babo? Babo tea, yeah.”
The clerk tells us to try across the street. We cross Eighth Avenue and enter a take-out place. On the menu there is neither “Boba” nor “Babo” tea, but there is “Bubble Tea”. This is obviously what my cousin was looking for. She orders one.
Out in the sun, we sip the sweet, refreshing “Bubble Tea”. There are tapioca balls piled up inside. When you take a sip, you also get to chew on the tapioca.
Nostalgic for the activity from before, we make our way back down to Fifth and Sixth Avenues, where the Spanish signs dominate the scene.

My cousin buys a pupusa—a fried corn tortilla with cheese, and I buy a quesadilla with beans, Mexican rice, and guacamole. We decide that nearby Sunset Park (the neighborhood’s namesake) must be the place to eat our lunch. We climb the wide steps of the park. They lead to expansive lawns where healthy trees provide ample shade. Families enjoy picnics, kids kick around soccer balls. Nearby, an announcer yells through a megaphone in Spanish. He’s beside what looks like an organized neighborhood basketball game. The announcer’s words follow every move, every play.

We find a bench toward the highest point of the park. From it there is a sweeping view of midtown-to-downtown Manhattan, Jersey City, downtown Brooklyn, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and the northern parts of Staten Island. Barges slowly travel through New York Harbor. I point out that, from our perspective, the hand and torch of the Statue of Liberty rise above the Jersey horizon.

At a Pennsylvania Picnic Table

My cousin was married just before Independence Day this year. There was some liquor; there were some yarmulkas; there were blessings; there was dancing; and there was a healthy, pervading sense that history simultaneously repeats and rejuvenates itself. The wedding was in Cleveland, and I drove there with my grandparents. We drove across New Jersey and Pennsylvania to get there. The ride's scenery was dominated by views of farmland--fertile land that rolled into the bluish-gray horizon. We had some Appalachian bluegrass on the radio. When the signal went too fuzzy, we searched for another bluegrass station. We always found replacement bluegrass. About halfway across Pennsylvania on the drive back, we stopped at a rest area to eat tuna-salad sandwiches and gigantic pickles. I got a drink of water inside the rest area building. When I came back outside, I found my grandparents sitting at a shaded picnic bench, but sharing the bench with a stranger. I noticed everyone was laughing, so they were already acquainted. I sat down and said hello to the stranger, a man who looked to be in his forties.

"You want your tuna sandwich?" my grandmother asked.
I told her I was still full from our large brunch at a Cleveland diner.
"What? You don't want your tuna sandwich? Have just the half. And a pickle, too."
I couldn't fight it. I started eating the tuna sandwich. The pickles were perfect dill pickles.
My grandfather asked the stranger how long he'd been driving. Before he could answer, I asked where he'd come from (my grandparents had already learned this while I was away).
"Oh, you know, been driving about eight days now. I'm coming from San Diego to visit my mom in Queens."
I could tell from his accent, from his inflection, that he was a native Spanish speaker (as well as native English speaker--truly bilingual).
"Oh, Queens. Where in Queens?" my grandmother asked. She was excited to have a chance to talk about New York. My grandparents grew up in Brooklyn, and have always lived in the City.
The stranger said he was traveling to Cypress Hills.
"Cypress Hills!" my grandfather yelled pretty loud. "I grew up in East New York."
"Well that's where I'm going: Cypress Hills--East New York. My mom still lives there."
From my grandparents' questions, we all learned that this man had grown up in East New York.
"I used to go to Thomas Jefferson High School," my grandfather told him.
The man laughed: "That's where I went. Graduated in '76."
My grandfather talked about where he used to play baseball on a field near the high school.
"That's where I played ball," the man said.
My grandfather said, "Now I was at Thomas Jefferson in 1946, '47. But do you remember a Mr. Greene, an art teacher?"
"Yeah," the man said. "He was an old guy. Mr. Greene."
Soon we said goodbye and wished the man an easy last day of his trip.
It was my turn to drive. Once we were all seated in the car, I turned to my grandfather and told him that the conversation with the man from San Diego had deeply impressed me as a classic story of the immigrant experience in New York City. My grandfather's poor, awestruck, energetic immigrant parents had come to New York from Hungary. They settled where many of their own ethnic population were settling: East New York. A generation or so later in East New York, the same pattern occurred, but this time with immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries.
"Well, that hadn't even occurred to me," my grandfather said. "But I suppose you're right. Can you believe he went to Thomas Jefferson?"