As a suburban New Yorker myself, I have some city blood in me, but only half. The other half of the blood that runs through my veins is the quiet, green-lawn-loving, cute red car driving, girl who loves a night hanging out with good friends in a basement. So coming to The Big Apple to actually live, has certainly been an experience.
I just got home from Manhattan College in Riverdale, NY to visit my best friend, Monica. Riverdale is located in the northwest most portion on the Bronx or the “BX” as everyone there refers to it, I learned. I was so excited to see Monica that I almost forgot about the reputation I have known my whole life about certain areas of the Bronx: girls need to carry mace, drug dealers line the corners, never travel in a group of all girls after dark and so on. I started to flip out on my subway ride up there. Here I am, an 18 year old female, who really looks like she has no idea what she is doing as she reads a map of the subway. A tall african american man was bopping his head back and fourth next to me as he was listening to Drake’s “Up All Night” and didn’t refrain from singing, at a loud tone I must add, “ok now we outta here, toodles to you bitches,” and then stopped. I guess he was just really feeling that line....
So anyway I braced myself for the worst. But surprisingly, when I hopped off of the subway, I was taken aback. There was lots of green grass, a dad and his two kids playing wiffle ball off to the side of an apartment building, and many people dressed and walking to temple, obviously for the Jewish holiday. It was quite....serene.
Monica picked me up and as we were walking to her campus it got nicer and nicer. Her dorm had a beautiful view of trees and flowers located in the courtyard area of the school. It was like I wasn’t in a city at all, almost like central park but it felt so much more like home to me. It was suburbia!
I asked Monica what was going on and where the scary Bronx were. She simply replied, “just wait until tonight.” We went out last night and as we were traveling on the shuttle bus and getting farther away from campus, I began to see what she meant. The graffiti along every building or structure was angry with tones of yellow, red or black and in general, the people on the street seemed tougher. An old man asked me for some spare change, and came closer and closer to me as I was walking away, demanding I give him something. It was a scary feeling after seeing such a peaceful campus. We ate at a diner around 2am because after being up so late, we were unbelievably hungry.There I witnessed a waitress grab a costumer by the ear and throw him out. She had red hair(as in the actual color red) pulled back into a tight bun, wore light blue eyeliner which didn’t help the sharp stare in her eyes, and drew on her eyebrows a color that anyone in their right mind would know was not natural. Apparently this 20 year old guy who she literally threw out was “sassing” her and she had “had enough of that shit.” Basically you don’t want to be on Tina’s bad list....
So although I had a blast with Monica and loved her campus, I don’t know if the Bronx are for me, at least the part of it that I was exposed to. Walking off of the subway this morning into Columbus Circle was like walking into my concrete secret garden. It was so different from the place that I had spent the last 24 hours.
I always knew I wanted to live in NYC one day because come on, it is the greatest city in the world! Whenever I tell people I’m from New York their eyes light up as bright as Times Square and they ask me question after question about a fantasy life they think I live daily. Well the truth is, now I do. Manhattan is my fantasy.
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