UPTOWNflavor

"Movin' On Uptown", Photo Credit: NYTimes

One of the newest spectator sports I’ve grown addicted to in Harlem has been watching all the tour buses that come up through the neighborhood. Every Saturday morning I have breakfast at the same diner on 135th and Broadway, Bus Stop. You’ll see a tour bus come through the area about every 30 minutes. Seriously! My friend who didn’t believe me took the challenge. After about 1 hour or so she too came to the light. “Where are they all going?” I honestly couldn’t answer the question, but I told her that we should probably take one of those tours just for the thrill of it to find out.

One thing that always captured my imagination was the thought of what the tour guides tell the tourists as they cruise through Harlem. I always imagined they’d say, ”And here you’ll see some indigenous Harlemites going about their daily routines. Watch how they interact!” or something like that. Well, it seems I wasn’t too far off. The New York Times recently published an article promoting the use of the public bus system.  The writer touted how the price of a Metrocard allows you to take a tour of the city cheaper than the big red buses.  He even went so far as to describe what to look for on a trip. Here’s what tourists have in store for them Uptown.

Let’s set up the scene. You’ve just passed the Upper East Side and the Whitney Museum. Now you’re headed farther uptown :

…the neighborhood grows poorer, not that it could go any other direction, when you pass 96th Street; on your right the George Washington Carver Houses, public projects, stretch out for several blocks before you head west past the Duke Ellington statue at the picturesque northeast corner of Central Park; get out and stroll around the Harlem Meer — an 11-acre lake most tourists don’t get to see.

Then it’s through Columbia University territory and into West Harlem and Washington Heights, where commerce and life on the mostly Latino streets should keep your eyes busy. (Try to spot Mexican businesses alongside the Dominican ones; that represents a demographic change in the last decade or so.)

At 155th Street, you’ll pass the Beaux Arts Audubon Terrace to your left, housing Boricua College, museums and cultural institutions. Speaking of institutions, what happened to the yellow cabs? Here, livery cabs, usually Lincoln Town Cars with license plates that start with “T”, rule the day. On your right at 156th Street, you’ll catch Kennedy Radio Dispatch, a livery base, where a headphone-wearing dispatcher takes calls and radios drivers. (The scene will look familiar to anyone who saw the Broadway musical “In the Heights.”)

Eventually you’ll end up in the ritzier stretch that real estate agents call Hudson Heights…

You may read the full article here.