The best way to get to the Public Library is by subway. Line six runs north-south between the Bronx and Manhattan. I walk to the station on 110th St and Lexington Avenue.
I love that 110th St is called Tito Puente Way. In the corner is a beautiful, deteriorated building, made in 1910, Beaux Art Style. In that decade, most of the neighborhood's population was Italian. The building shows the splendor of that time. Its main entrance is on Lexington. It has two columns, painted red, with Ionic capitals. The walls are decorated with shields. There is one that can hardly be seen, with a golden fleece.
East Harlem is no longer the Italian neighborhood of New York. On the ground floor of the building is the Florería Rosita, distinguished by a Mexican flag. It doesn't just sell flowers. There is also a wide variety of plastic toys made in Asia.
Since the 1930s, Puerto Ricans have arrived, giving El Barrio its distinctive Hispanic touch. Thousands of descendants of enslaved people also came. Although emancipation was enacted in 1863, the laws segregated Afro-descendants and kept them in poverty. Apartheid was practiced in the United States before South Africans used that word. The segregation was more stringent in the southern states. For this, millions traveled to the north. The city constructed the massive buildings of the Public Housing Program for them.
The mix of origins gives a unique flavor to El Barrio. It is summer. People enjoy the spray of a fire hydrant. I can hear hip hop from a speaker that a guy is carrying in the street. In the corner, a group of old men plays dominoes on the sidewalk while salsa music plays.
Now and for one year, this is my Barrio.