The Street

I've been reading Ann Petry's The Street this week. I loved it the first time I read it, but living blocks from where it occurs makes it all the more lovely.

When I read it, I have a hard time thinking of West 116th being part of central Harlem. I'm not sure if that is because I live in Morningside Heights, which I still think is a made up name from Columbia, and not Harlem; but I know this was Harlem at one point. Below the Heights it is still is West Harlem. The gentrification is rampant though. I hope it won't just melt into the Upper West Side like Morningside Heights is doing. Maybe not though, it is starting to be trendy to live in West Harlem, and East Harlem for that fact.

Its nice to read about what 116 was. Especially since I knew people who lived here when the book takes place. It was a dangerous neighborhood, it wasn't nice or pretty. The landscape, ethnicity, and socio-economic class may have changed, but the buildings haven't and neither have a lot of the feelings of residents. (I don't count undergrads as residents, if you live here year round, you count) There is still a reason that the dorms are so close to campus, and the Heights buffer the university from the rest of the community.

People are still desperately stuck or equally happy to be where they are. The poverty looms large. And outside the university community (or even in it), too many kids are making bad choices. A few people beat the traditions and become shining stars.

Mostly reading The Street again makes me want to get more involved with the community. I hate to think that if someone wrote a novel that served as a snapshot of West 116th today that in fifty years it would still have the same problems and be so torn between have and have not that it is today. It is a proud street, with an amazing history, both from Harlem and CU. No matter what direction you look at it, it is a great place. Maybe I can help reflect a little bit of that history.