The New York Times Magazine - USA (2022-06-05)

The fi rst time I moved to New York,

I was an undergraduate, and I tried

to make Harlem my home. I had a lot

to learn. As a Californian, I thought

Chucks were year-round shoes; I

wore them even in the snow, let-

ting my toes get stiff on late-night

walks from the library or the 116th

Street station back to my dorm. By

my sophomore year, though, I knew

the most important things: where on

Malcolm X I could fi nd the shea but-

ter I needed to keep my skin from

turning ashy in the winter, the bar-

bershop where I could get a decent

fade and the grocery store where I

could buy Red Rooster hot sauce.

An earnest literature nerd, I was

studying at Columbia because I

wanted to be a writer, which meant

being like the writers I read as a high

school student — Larsen, Hughes,

Hurston. And that meant being in

Harlem. So I often found myself

at Minton’s Playhouse on 118th, or

hanging out at to St. Nicho las Park,

or soaking up history by osmosis

at the Studio Museum. I wanted

to become part of Harlem’s long

Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, circa 1905. Back lots of New York tenements, circa 1935.

HELLO

TO

ALL

THAT

By Ismail Muhammad

Photograph by

Ashley Gilbertson

Decade after decade, creative

minds have come to

New York to make history.

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