Whenever I visit a new town or city, I immediately begin to map out the streets and transit. I’ve always done this, ever since I was little. By third grade, I had memorized the subway line we lived on. I made miniature directories about how to get around the city.
When I first moved to Brooklyn, the sprawling borough was a mystery to me. I didn’t know anything other than a few stores along the commercial street and the subway station around the corner. In middle school, I started biking and walking to meet my friends or to go to school, and my mental map grew. By high school, I had almost all of Brooklyn mapped out and I was able to navigate to and from home with ease. On the occasion that I would pick up my little brother from kindergarten, I was able to figure out how to get us home whenever the bus was not running. When I was out late, I would figure out how to get my friends home as safely and quickly as possible. I am lucky enough to have access to multiple nearby bus and rail lines so only on the rare occasion am I ever stranded with no way to get home.
Through high school, my map of the city grew to encompass the rest of the boroughs. I now had the entire subway system memorized and I could navigate through most neighborhoods. For some reason, however, it never felt complete. Whenever I walked through a community, I would know my location on a map, but I had no idea where I really was. Sophomore year of high school, I started picking up a bagel every morning on my way to school. At some point it hit me that I didn’t actually know most of the places in my neighborhood. So I started exploring. I learned that just down the street from my house is a world-famous slot car racing store. I learned that the grocery store across from the subway station was once an old movie theater. I explored the streets themselves, from the major historic avenues to the tiny dead-end streets. When I pick my brother up from school, instead of figuring out immediately how to get home, we wander around and I show him all the cool buildings and structures that tell the history of our neighborhood. I take my friends with me on adventures through Brooklyn and Queens to visit vintage stores, old main avenues once traversed by streetcars, and explore the parks. More often than not, once I’ve made sure everyone is on their way home, I walk home and absorb the activity that surrounds me, listening and watching everyone go about their business.
There’s something beautiful about the way, even in the largest city in the country, people have created local communities to support and grow with each other.
Here's a photo I took, walking down the main road - Church Avenue - at night
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