Analysis Of Fifth Avenue Uptown By James Baldwin

My first official memory of New York would be taking place in the Bronx, summer of 2003. I was five years old sitting outside on the steps of our apartment building in the Grand Concourse, which is known as “The Project Village”. You could hear the Spanish music that blasted from the other apartment windows, and see the smaller kids like me getting ready to have relay races and actually enjoy the sun, and my favorite which was seeing the coquito man come up the hill with his truck. A coquito in english is simply an icee, and during the summer for one dollar it was a gift sent from above. I was actually running down the hill to meet the coquito man, who we called Papa Juan, and I was stopped by a police officer. I remember feeling terrified …show more content…
Uptown," James Baldwin argues thats living in the housing projects can have damaging effects on minorities. Specifically, Baldwin believes these “ghettos” have caused lasting psychological damages, and need to be destroyed. As the author puts it, “A ghetto can be improved in one way only: out of existence.”(Baldwin 13) . Harlem’s projects in the 1960s as Baldwin is describing was exactly that. It was his description, not everyone else’s. Since the 1960s you could say every project or ghetto has improved, because even though they are not the most crime free places or safest, they do not have the major issues of back then. Although some people such as Whoopi Goldberg believe the projects weren 't just filled with darkness and a place where no one wanted to be, in her story “All I Really Need to Know I Learned In New York City” she describes her time living there as an unforgettable learning experience. “The whole city was a classroom-a big fun, exciting classroom.”(Goldberg 4). There will never be one right answer on whether New York 's projects have improved, stayed the same, or worsened because everyone will have their own outlook and experiences to speak …show more content…
Those two issues back in the 1960s went hand in hand, meaning most of the time you were poor because you were black because you weren 't given a fair opportunity. In todays society if you are poor it does not matter what race you are, and you receive assistance. There are so many social welfare programs for those who really need the extra help yet poverty is still existing just like the projects are still existing. In my New York the projects are not terrible low income places, but they are still not ideal to live in. They are much safer due to the fact that most have police patrolling and stationed there, but they cannot protect everyone nor be there 24/7. Police in this day and age have progressed majorly since Baldwins era. Yes, there are stories about policemen who kill these young African Americans for no apparent reason, but truly back then it just was not made public. Now is when the media has made sure the world knows what is going on, but this coverage was just recent. Not every policeman in New York is out to racial profile you or kill you, and this is why I know my upcoming profession will be extremely difficult because of peoples mentality. I can use my own personal example, and I could have easily despised cops for the rest of my life based on that experience, but I didn’t. I cannot speak for the policemen of 1960s but I can speak from a future officers point of view when I say I know my job is to protect