Across the pavement...
![Picture](/uploads/1/8/7/9/18793802/9787815.jpg?920)
Langston Hughes House on 127th between 5th and Madison
With my newly rented voice recorder in hand, I began a slow, nervous skip down my street
that I had egotistically decided was so familiar to me. A couple brownstones down and across
the patchy pavement, I found a group of 5 or 6 men throwing dice and laughing. Across that
patchwork street, I hesitated a moment and chose to play courageous and walk over. Shyly,
I explained that I was working on a school project about Harlem and collecting stories of its
people, that I was a new neighbor. The men first asked if they were being too loud, thinking
that I was there to complain about their noisy dice game. "No, no. Just wanted to talk with you
for a bit about our neighborhood." They were more than hesitant and relied on good humor
and silliness to block actually interviewing with me. One of them saw me linger and finally
told me to go down two brownstones and check out the plaque behind the trees, to go learn who used to live here and
then ask him any questions about his neighborhood and what it's all about.
I walked past, crept over the little rocks, and moved aside the brush of a large
tree to find a plaque, indeed confirming the residence of a celebrity. This is how I learned
Langston Hughes resided in a building across from mine, on the same block, at 20 E. 127th.
The eventual activist, poet, playwright, novelist, columnist, leader of the Harlem Renaissance
was nascent to where I call home now. The men toRealizing the men were becoming peeved with my
presence after they told me to come talk to them when they were more sober in the morning, I
continued on my way, feeling a little thrill off my first encounter as outside and insider, learning from my neighbors.
that I had egotistically decided was so familiar to me. A couple brownstones down and across
the patchy pavement, I found a group of 5 or 6 men throwing dice and laughing. Across that
patchwork street, I hesitated a moment and chose to play courageous and walk over. Shyly,
I explained that I was working on a school project about Harlem and collecting stories of its
people, that I was a new neighbor. The men first asked if they were being too loud, thinking
that I was there to complain about their noisy dice game. "No, no. Just wanted to talk with you
for a bit about our neighborhood." They were more than hesitant and relied on good humor
and silliness to block actually interviewing with me. One of them saw me linger and finally
told me to go down two brownstones and check out the plaque behind the trees, to go learn who used to live here and
then ask him any questions about his neighborhood and what it's all about.
I walked past, crept over the little rocks, and moved aside the brush of a large
tree to find a plaque, indeed confirming the residence of a celebrity. This is how I learned
Langston Hughes resided in a building across from mine, on the same block, at 20 E. 127th.
The eventual activist, poet, playwright, novelist, columnist, leader of the Harlem Renaissance
was nascent to where I call home now. The men toRealizing the men were becoming peeved with my
presence after they told me to come talk to them when they were more sober in the morning, I
continued on my way, feeling a little thrill off my first encounter as outside and insider, learning from my neighbors.