I started walking east on 122nd street starting at Morningside Avenue around 2:30. It was cold, about 30, under a bright blue sky. I walked through to Marcus Garvey Park where I stopped taking pictures. I then went to have a capuccino at BOMA, at 126th and 5th.

north side

south side

• boarded-up apartment building
• townhouses in good repair

• foundations for new building being dug
• townhouses in good repair

Manhattan Avenue

• apartment buildings

St.Nicholas

• Harriet Tubman statue
• 28th precinct "hub"

• apartment buildings
• Mount Olive church
• gas station

after crossing 8th (Douglas) Avenue

• Coventry Garden
• Garden #8: "This is a registered Green Thumb Community Garden. A program of the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of New York"
• vacant lot adjacent to garden #8
• new construction
• for sale
• brownstones in good repair

• vacant lot at the corner
• apartment buildings in good repair

As I walk by, taking pictures, a youngish black man walking in the other direction says "Harlem is not for sale, man."

• Joseph Daniel Wilson garden

the signs on this one are much more formal than on garden #8. The grates are also extremely nice, a work of art that must have a history

• adjacent is an empty lot with several cars parked.

all the empty lots on this street (in our part of Harlem?) are well fenced: a reaction to "crime" or to the gardeners?

• Second Friendship Baptist Church (with a taped piece of paper on the door from the Red Cross talking about a visit regarding a disaster
• Gabriel House - Addicts Rehabilitation Center

after crossing 7th (Powell) Avenue

• after an apartment building at the corner, brownstones mostly in good repair
• "Community Pride - Today Dreams, Tomorrow Realities"
• a set of particularly grand brownstones, some in disrepair, others in reconstruction and one "for sale" with a sold sign. As I photograph, a black man says something like "too late to buy that one!" A sign states these are "historic"
• The "Supreme Grand Lodge - District #1 - Independent Order of Mechanics - Preston Unity Friendly Society Inc. - West Indies, United Kingdon, Nether Lands - Established 1906 - North & South America" (an offshoot of the Masons?)
• A boarded up apartment building at the corner with Lenox

• Baby College of HCZ
• First King Baptist Church
• "Christian Andersen Complex" public schools (PS 242).

I am in front of the school around 3 as children (all Black that I saw) are going out. The street is full of cars double and triple parked with kids getting in. This is not (only) a local school, and parents can afford to drive in NYC.

checking on the web, it seems that this "complex" is made up of several small schools, including PS242 and the Future Leaders Institute Charter School

after crossing 6th (Lenox) Avenue

• brownstones in good repair

• St Martin's church
• sign on lamp post stating "Mount Morris Park Historic District"

we should also investigate the historic district associations as I suspect them to be intimately, through perhaps not fully willingly, associated with the developers and real estate owners

• brownstones
• Presbyterian church

• in the park ("Marcus Garvey" aka "Mount Morris"), the Pelham Fritz Recreation Center and Parks Afterschool

I then walked to the BOMA coffee shop at 5th and 126th for capuccino and cake. Most of the space is given to a few cosmetics stands (feels very empty). The other side has a usual coffee shop stand surrounded by a dozen tables, half of which are occupied by two and three Whites and two or three Blacks. There is an "African" theme to the labels for the coffees and cakes (but the capuccino I had, very good, was not noticeably "different").

While sitting I took notes on a conversation taking place at the table next to me. A late middle aged White man ("WM") had been sitting, then moved away. A young Black man with dreadlocks ("DL") who had moved to a table on the other side of me, then moved to the space vacated. As he sat down WM came back saying that this was his seat and that he had just left it to get his coffee but that DL could sit on the other side. This last comment followed a kind of apology/explanation by DL who said something like "I needed an outlet for my laptop." He installed himself across from WM, and opened his Apple notebook. WM then asked him how to take the lid off his coffee, or whether he could drink it through the small hole in the lid. This was confirmed by DL who "explained" that "it keeps the coffee warm." Then WM said something about sugar and DL told him "they don't put sugar in drinks, you have to do it yourself." WM got up to get sugar which came in a dispenser. As he got close to sprinkling from the dispenser, DL told him "you should check this is not salt" which WM proceeded to do. After a brief silence, WM complained that he would not come back here because the service is bad: "they did not give me a spoon." DL told him, "you have to get it yourself from over there." WM: "it's good customer service to give people silverware not matter." They continued talking off and on about other matters that I could not always get. It seems that WM is an Albanian from Kosovo who was translator for the United Nations there. DL: "your English is sure better than my Albanian!" following some comment by WM about his English.

altogether a "nice" New York moment between newcomer to the US and oldtimer. The interesting thing here is the amount of explanations, rationalizations, teachings, and commentaries about "getting a drink in New York" to accents and international events.