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The major intersection here is Broadway, Riverside Dr. and Dykeman (a.k.a. 200th St.). The streets and sidewalks are broad and surprisingly tidy. The look is almost that of a small town’s business district on steroids. Small shops of every distinction pack in below apartments. The neighborhood, now of a pleasant warm hispanic-brown hue, flourished during a period when the long since dwindled upper-middle Irish lived here in seven room apartments with nannie’s quarters. Those would be my quarters.
My room is about 8’x 15’; narrow and rectangular. The ceilings are at about 10 feet and are bordered by a foot wide ribbon of white paint and a chair rail. The plaster walls are baby blue and the floor is a nice hardwood. There is amazing closet space with two, tall, narrow, not-quite-walk-ins. I have my own phone, cable if I want it, and my own bath adjacent.
The rest of the apartment is spread down a long, private inner hallway. We share a kitchen and TV room, and the rest is far enough away that we never hear each other except in the private entry hall.
Directly across from the building, a pre-war, six floor apartment building bordering a checkerboard sea of red, yellow, orange and brown pre-war, six floor apartment buildings, sits the southwest end of Inwood Hill Park.
Inwood Hill Park takes up the northwestern tip of Manhattan Island and the Inwood Neighborhood is comprised of the 18 or so blocks south and west of that. Here is where the Harlem River splits at delta with the North River. Inwood Park nestles a small inlet or cove of the Harlem River just past the split.
The cove is a peaceful place, necklaced with an Olmsteadesque walk. Inwood Hill and Columbia University's Baker Field hug it. Huge rocks hold up the shoreline and some jut, mostly submerged, a few yards out. Gulls sit on the water alongside ducks.
The Hill, I am told, provides quite a view of either river. I haven’t been up the hill yet, but there are the paths. Much like the parks in Louisville, these paths wander through tall, old trees.
So, landmarks …
Dykeman, as I said, is also 200th Street. The north edge of Central Park is at the equivalent of 110th, Times Square is at 42nd, and the north edge of SoHo, West Houston, would otherwise be 1st Street. The studio is there at W. Houston between SoHo and Greenwich Village. Getting there is a simple ride on the "A" train which takes about 25 minutes during the day when it is express most of the way, and 45 minutes to an hour after 10 pm, when the express fairy goes home to party.
I have spent most of my short time here just walking. I walked all around Time’s Square and then 42 blocks down Broadway to W. Houston. Then today I checked things out to the north and Inwood. There is so much here to do and to see and to simply take in. It could take years …
