the beginning

In the spring of 2001, when I was 12 in eighth grade, my family moved from 529 w 111th street in Manhattan to 122 w 111th street only four blocks over.  That move, right before the biggest growth and "changes" in my life would change me forever.

If you go to 111th street in between Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell today you will see a very different street from the one my family, particularly my mom, saw in 2001.  The housing has been renovated and the former tenants displaced.  The empty parking lot at the other end of the block has been paved over releasing its large rat population into the wild.  Where couples used to fight and yell into the wee hours of the mourning and drug dealers used to blare their music, you'll now find a peaceful street with a good mix of middle class people from a wide range of ethnicities.  The street is safer but the mural painted on the side of a building near the end of St Nicholas Ave that read "Always Harlem" is gone and in its place stands a skyscraper of luxury apartments.  Kids no longer roam the streets playing basketball with whatever they can and dropping the "F" word but I believe old men still sit on the corner gambling with dominoes starting conversations with the passers by.  Its easy to argue that 111th street is "not really Harlem" but for me in my heart its part of the Harlem I love.  Whatever the case may be, my life had a new focus.  The center of my life changed from 65th street and Broadway to 129th street and Lenox.  In true Harlem fashion the center of our life was the church.  That's one thing that us mormons have in common with the Harlemits, we share a common center.