Description: Documenting my wanderings around and about NYC
Today I was up in Italian Harlem doing some shopping at the Target (and avoiding the mess down in lower Manhattan). As I was walking back to the bus to get home, I noticed that someone had shut down one of the streets and there were all these people in yellow shirts milling around. I was intrigued and went up there.
It was at 118th Street and Pleasant Avenue and they had shut down that block and two lanes of 117th Street (for parking). What I saw was something that I didn’t think I’d ever see: a game of stickball. I’ve heard of it and have even noticed that some street up in Harlem called something like “Stickball Hall of Fame Street” or other honorific. But an actual game being played? I thought that was as likely as seeing an ice wagon drawn by a horse.
There were maybe 60 people watching and playing stickball. The dress code was a yellow shirt proclaiming a memorial stickball game. For a while I thought it was the most bizarre and wonderful 9/11 commemoration imaginable. A welcome respite from the politics going on several miles to the south.