Here I am, back in my OLD neighborhood, BroaDyke (and I didn't make that up). That's the intersection of Broadway and Dyckman Street (200th) in Manhattan. It's almost as far uptown as one can travel in Manhattan without falling off the Island.
I used to live near here when I first moved to Manhattan 20 years ago. Mark (my then-partner) and I bought a co-op apartment in Park Terrace Gardens (on 215th St. at the top of The Hill), after having moved here from Cleveland, Ohio. (The story about the Park Terrace Gardens apartment and my relationship with Mark will be in my book, Climbing Home, someday to be available on Amazon.)
Re-visiting the old neighborhood has been both strange and weird.
Strange: Many of my favorite stores and restaurants are no longer here. Some are still here, but have changed their names, proprietors and staff. There are lots of permanently-shuttered storefronts where once-thriving businesses used to be. Evidently, landlords decided before the Crash that commercial rents could be raised to the roof--which drove many formerly-successful businesses out of the neighborhood.
For example: I learned that the old "Golden Rule" diner/restaurant on Broadway near 207th St. closed down after their monthly rent was raised to $6,000. The "Golden Rule" was a place that Old Irish Ladies went for breakfast and had tea and toast.
I remember buying their "ThanksGiving Special" (a complete Turkey dinner) for $11.95 and smuggling it into St. Vincent's Hospital for Jorge (another book), where he was confined in the first stages of his eventual demise from AIDS.
The restaurant is still open, under a new name (they didn't bother to put up a new awning, just pasted the new name over "Golden Rule") but I don't think I'll be going there soon.
Weird: Eerily, some store owners have somehow remembered me from many years ago and know exactly what I want before I ask for it. At 211 St. and Broadway there is a bodega where I used to buy cigarettes and newspapers before heading to the subway for my daily commute. The same South Yemenese guys are still working there and they recognized me from 6 years ago.
The neighborhood is an interesting mix. It's Manhattan, but it smells and looks like The Bronx. I'll expand the following essay later, but here's the breakdown:
West of Broadway/North of Dyckman: Relatively inexpensive rents (compared to the rest of the Island) attract lots of Columbia University students, recently graduated and newly-employed Professionals, young married couples (straight and gay), musicians, actors, singers, dancers, etc. who find that they can afford the fabulous pre-war (II) apartments and still have relatively quick and cheap transportation (30 minutes by subway A-Train) to all that The City has to offer. And lots of old Irish retirees.
People actually own cars (rare in Manhattan) and can easily find parking on the street. It's also easy to get here from New Jersey, Upstate, New England, and Long Island via car, so some people live here and commute to those places.
East of Broadway: Lots of old, run-down tenement apartments formerly occupied by subway workers at the MTA Yard at 10th Avenue. Primarily occupied by Dominicans and Puerto Ricans (mostly Dominicans) who hate each other. Drug sales on the street. Tacky stores. Poor people who literally live in refrigerator boxes.
Also, there is a mixture of the "West of Broadway" that keeps seeping in as the various micro-neighborhoods become more gentrified.
West of Broadway/South of Dyckman: is the fabulous Fort Tryon Park, including The Cloisters and Fort Washington, the Highest Point in Manhattan, from where our Revolutionary War troops lobbed cannon balls to attack the British ships in the Hudson River.
Anyhow, I'm repeating my NYC Inwood/Broadyke experience at a higher level of the spiral and it feels like home...again.
