Broadway in Harlem July 2008

Much of life here in the city plays out on the streets and sidewalks. I have not seen such intense streetlife in other American cities. Certainly not in the suburbs. Out of towners are missing a wonderful dimension of human interaction. The trains were fucked up again as they have been for every weekend and the shuttle bus that took the place of the A train deposited me at 168 St. Previously I had walked down St Nicholas Ave but this time I decided to walk down Broadway, a much busier commercial avenue. Actually this used to be Bloomingdale Road but was annexed to Broadway sometime in the 19th century. Bloomingdale is the English rendition of the Dutch name Bloemendal but they both mean the same thing, valley of flowers. There used to be a valley downtown that was just filled with beautiful flowers and the Dutch named the valley Bloemendal. The valley is now probably covered with luxury high rise chicken coops.

I steeled myself and bought some shaved ice with syrup, something I always told my children to never, never do. I have misgivings about the sanitary habits of Hispanic peasants just out of the jungle with visions of tapeworm, salmonella and worse things. I picked the weirdest looking syrup, a murky brown liquid with what looked like bread crusts floating in it. I asked the vendor what it was and he replied with something that sounded like "hogwash". Good lord. I certainly hope not.

There seems no limit to what you can buy on the sidewalks. Some of the fruit vendors carve mangos with great artistry into the resemblance of flowers and put them on a stick to eat.

I stopped off in a Mexican joint to have a taco. It was quite delicious. I think Mexican food is just fine if you avoid the refried beans. The waitress looked just like one of the Mayan glyph's. She also had an impish sense of humor. She innocently asked me if I wanted some hot sauce? She warned me that it was quite hot. She then returned with a jar of some green semi-solid substance and flopped two heaping tablespoons on my taco. After a brief thought, she added a third. My taco was now completely buried in the green sauce. I had a moment of hesitation but my thought was, I am a Saxon. Should a Saxon hesitate at consuming what Mexicans do without a quiver of hesitation? I was unwilling to lose face and bit into the taco. It was quite hot but not excessively so. Have I burned my tongue out from years of eating hot peppers?

Broadway in Harlem, July 2008