i've been taking careful back tracks into the neighborhood both
west and east of lenox. everywhere the landscape changes and i'm
just barely holding on to the little memories i have of these blocks.
on 108th and broadway, the first health food store around the ways is
now gone...it's kinda sad that even on broadway in the path of columbia
and all it's yuppies and political science majors, the health food shop owned
by koreans would get hit too. across, the spanish/chinese from junior high
is vacant...inside an ad for upcoming condos
looks like columbia bought out this corner too like they 110th
and broadway.
the bodegas are disappearing. There use to be a bodega on each corner
and now, Joe is gone, the spot I would always grab a honey blunt on 110th
and Manhattan is gone and the spot around the corner from Ebony Hotel
has been shut down for over a year.
there's only 3 left...a good walk to each...one's inbetween and liquor
store and a forever organic health food shop (oddly enough, a block
up from me...a first )...I wonder
when I want some good ole peanut butter wafers for 25cents and
a hand full of peanut chews and a white owl...where will I go?
on the opposite corner of my block I've been watching workers shell
out this building. this place was so old that for about three weeks,
the workes had to protective gear because there were high levels of
asbestos and thus, all th guts had to covered tightly every night and
a huge barrier had to be created. rumor has it that it's going to be a hotel
...that the fire was a classic set up...the owner wanted these folks out
and did the classic trick...well it worked. i can't really see how but hey
we've got a condo coming up on lenox so what the fuck?!
it's shocking to see the work so far....about a year ago, a fire
out of nowhere burnt out one side of the building...an elder died
as a result, folks never moved back...it was pretty obvious that they weren't.
Tyese's grandma has lived there for years. I was actually outside
that morning when the fire happened...To see Tyese, remember
her as my little sis best friend, partners in crime breaking night and day,
getting more friendly with the boys around the way than I had ever...wow.
Tyese has three kids...my sis, two...and here's the home she was raised in
....in a blaze...creepy
Jose, the deaf guy who had a crush on me when I was rolling Toni
and Denise, had family still in the building too. He was the darker
one for sure...his mom, I think was Puerto Rican, was clearly lighter
as was his siblings...clearly Jose had a different daddy..but no one was talking
deaf...he was still cool...and cute. he always asks if I'm married yet
in sing that is...
the building was always red....deep red in paint. during the summer,
workers blasted the brick with water and somthing mixed in it...
you can't even look at this place and think it was red...
the brick now...I can't front...is beautiful. the fire escapes, they're
making bigger...perhaps more safer. One row of windows going down now
has patios constructed. In some ways, it is starting to look like a hotel.
i'm still not certain.
This is perhaps one of the few buildings in the block I spent
more time than mine.
Tyese was there of course. Then my best friend for the sake
of calling her that was Tony and her family of sisters and nieces
and boyfriends. a family of dark puerto ricans. Nappy hair and
spanglish in between dark and lovely perms and spandex.
now i ain't stereotypin...that how it was in that house.
I'd hang there and roll with them to 117th between lenox and
madison...pat, tony's sis, had a best friend named veronica in
that block who rolled with some puerto rican boys with scotters...
and so, that's what we'd do. go to 117th, hang out in mount morris
park, drink peach cisco aka liquid crack, neck...get our titties felt up
well some of us. mainly me and Tony were on this virgin manifesto...
we're going to wait...so we kinda watched.
when tnoy and her family finally moved, she had created serious
beef with my cousin Eddie and his girl Carmen. You see, Tony
was always trying to get Eddie. Problem was that Eddie was with
Carmen from 107th and Columbus and Carmen had not one but
two kids from Eddie...Daniele and Danny...being that she had Eddie's kids
...his first kids...ghetto rules apply...she's the first so fuck off.
Tony never left Eddie alone and honestly, my cousin was a hoe...
she finally got what she wanted...to be impregnanted by Eddie.
Carmen and Eddie eventually broke up. She lives out in Queens now.
Has a third son...Daniele has a child of her own now...I don't think
she's eighteen yet.
Eddie lives up in the Bronx with his younger brother, Paul
who has a child as well but my guess is he's going to be
with his girl for a while.
Perhaps it's good that me and Tony went different paths in life...
I might have ended up with her cousin Leo who lived
in Taino Towers on 2nd Ave. He joined the military....
I never saw him again...just the pitbull named Uno
But...had hung arouns, I may easily have had 3 kids myself
