Oh Man - I Saw The Naked Cowboy

Bright Lights Big City New York New York.This weekend I was in New York and Rhode Island visiting schools. I found the differences astounding. I stayed in the Lower East Side in an apartment with a friend of the family. She gave me the history of the neighborhood. In the 50s it was mostly Jewish, then many of the Jewish people moved to Brooklyn, and the area became dominated by Puerto Ricans and Dominicans and others. In that period, the neighborhood became rougher. Now, more Europeans and college students have moved in, and it has become safer once again. I found New York unique in the fact that in just a few blocks, you are in a completely different part of the city. For example, when I went to visit Pratt Institute, I passed the Housing Projects where Jay-Z grew up. A couple blocks later we were surrounded by brownstone apartments and the school was around the corner. The city is massive, but extremely well separated by the mentioned neighborhoods. Providence on the other hand, is a very small city. Trollies run constantly around in circuits and the only thing more pleasant than the weather was the lovely architecture of the buildings. I did see someone getting arrested in Providence, but even that seemed almost pleasant - the cop and arrestee clearly knew each other from a previous encounter and the other cop (waiting in the police car) was making conversation with some people in the street.