Coming home Friday evening, I decided to get off at the stop after mine and take a nice little stroll home, it was a lovely evening after all...and I really should get to know my neighborhood a bit better. To the East of Sunset Park, past the Mexican Groceries and Asian Markets lies Borough Park, a large, flourishing community of Hasidic Jews. Let me tell you, on a Friday night, the streets of their neighborhood are "poppin'." I probably got hit by half a dozen balls, and almost got knocked over by a little slimeball (my Dad's endearing nickname for most pre-pubescent boys) half my size. Groups of adults chatted it up in lounge chairs on their balconies (and I assume were also engaged in some sort of supervision of the little slimeballs....?).
In any case, it all looked like one big party I wanted to be a part of, despite the fact it would require my conversion to Hasidic Judaism not to mention trading in my hoodie and denim cut-offs for a not-so-flattering-dress-like thing. The following morning, I decided to return and document the streets in a very different light, on their Sabbath. Everything looked very much the same, sans people. Like some sort of post-armageddon or mass exile where everything was suddenly dropped and left. Toys in the middle of the street, trash cans knocked over into the street, chairs occupied the evening before, vacant on sidewalks and stoops, strollers chained up like bikes. It is probably one of the only places on a pleasant Saturday morning in NYC where people aren't bustling around.
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