139th - 140th st / 142nd - 144th st / 146th - 150th st / edgecombe ave
5.03 miles ish
this week felt long, a little endless, a little strange. i am not sure if i have too many of my own thoughts this week. this made me cry, and this brought me joy. aloneness is peculiar, even when i got to see friends in the city this week.
today’s walk was one i never would have taken of my own accord. what i would have missed! alexander hamilton’s literal house, butter yellow and victorian esque (?) balconies, sits in the middle of a park in the middle of the city. that i had never put together that hamilton heights was named after hamilton, that hamilton lived in harlem as noted in ‘it’s quiet uptown’, had never heard of this historical monument— is a monument to the bubble that is columbia university, hamilton’s alma mater.
i meandered through hamilton heights and sugar hill. the neighborhood is a bit of a mish mash, unplaceable or generalizable. families with small children, run-down store fronts, really elegant architecture. i know nothing of architecture, but i noticed jewel-toned colors, pointy roofs, brick buildings, and graceful fire escapes. brief wikipedia forays tell me that sugar hill was home to wealthy african americans during the harlem renaissance, like w.e.b. du bois and duke ellington. hamilton heights was mostly made up of affluent whites (hamilton), then affluent black families, then eastern europeans, then middle-class black families, then an influx of latino families, and most recently, whites again. i certainly heard a lot of spanish as i walked. but again, the neighborhood itself felt quite unplaceable, a reasonable ish cross section of new york.
the sights and smells of this walk: afternoon family walks; a little girl in braided pigtails dancing on the sidewalk; a church service (?) through a window; a lime green lighter in a puddle; an abominable quantity of dog poop; a chicago bulls cap; gold balloons stuck in a tree; the distinct smell of frying bacon; a black cat with strikingly green eyes; guacamole spilled on the street; memorials flowers posters photos; saint joseph friary; city college; broken glass; christmas tree remnants forgotten; a gorgeous purple brownstone; a catcaller; jackie robinson park; a small woman and her grocery cart; yankee stadium; a lucky penny.
there are these two buildings across riverside in new jersey, near the george washington bridge, that i always gaze at from afar when i am in riverside park. when the sun is setting, they reflect iridescent blues and golds. closer up, they are still luminescent in an almost alien manner, like mirrors or optical illusions, rectangles cut out of the sky to another dimension.
it was warm for winter, but cold enough that when i forgot to blink for a little while, and then closed my eyes, my eyelids felt cold. is this a me feeling or a human feeling?