Baldwin

Every so often it’s important to go back and reread something of James Baldwin in order to see just how far we’ve come, but, more importantly, how far we haven’t come as a nation and as a city.

In 1965, James Baldwin debated W.F. Buckley at Cambridge University in what became an immediate classic and a touchstone moment in the (intellectual) history of the civil rights movement. Baldwin notes in this debate that:

If you walk out of Harlem, ride out of Harlem, downtown, the world agrees what you see is much bigger, cleaner, whiter, richer, safer than where you are. They collect the garbage. People obviously can pay their life insurance. Their children look happy, safe.

And while the garbage may be collected in our community in 2021, Baldwin’s old neighborhood hosts not one, but two DSNY depots, and the income and wealth gap among Americans has never been more acute.

For the full debate, see:

2nd Avenue Subway, Still Coming…

The governor has said that:

“We will further extend the Second Avenue Subway from 96th Street to 125th Street,” Cuomo said Thursday during his State of the State address. “That will open up the East Side all the way up to Harlem for new, exciting possibilities.”

Note, however, it’s unclear where the money is coming from, and what the new (post-pandemic) timeline is.

Nick Garber at Patch.com has more: https://patch.com/new-york/harlem/2nd-avenue-subways-east-harlem-extension-move-forward-cuomo


Posted