With N (an Israeli from the American South), I took a walk in Central Park and learned of a remarkable Upper West Side phenomena.
On the Northwest corner of the Great Lawn, there is a buzzing mass of young, affluent, Modern Orthodox Jews.
It was a scene. Lots of white and black, kippot (ritual head-coverings for Men), long skirts, button-downs, groups of people, a frothing mass of the social and observant.
I find the density of social capital in this crowd to be immense: I bumped into two people I knew from my old days at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, and N bumped into more than 10, without trying. These folks knew each other, directly or otherwise.
A remarkable contrast compared to the frothing chaos of the East Village.
As we walked away from the crowd, I recognized a dark, tall, sunglassed and straw-hatted man in white linen and who had been walking on 10th street (near my apartment) an hour earlier.
It turns out that he's Spanish, and named Fermi (like the physicist). He lives in Barcelona, and was visiting his son (James), who just opened a restaurant called Mercat that serves Catalanian (sp?) food. He was amused that I recognized him, and I was happy to see a "familiar" face from the East Village.
I am envious of the Modox crowd, and their tight interconnection. They have something that a lot us don't: a large and comfortable social safety net.
But, I have my new Spanish friend from the East Village.
Loisaida is a term derived from the Latino (and especially Puerto Rican) pronunciation of "Lower East Side", a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. Loisaida Avenue is now an alternate name for Avenue C in the Alphabet City neighborhood of New York City, whose population has largely been Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican) since the late 1960s.
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