Let me first admit that I am obsessed with the people and the place
of my youth. Haunted by sweet memories of how their existence
enriched my life. These memories are with me everywhere woven in
the very fabric of my being. From them there is no escape, I am a
willing prisoner of my past in the Amsterdam Projects in New York's
mid-town Manhattan. But there are many like me - most of them
return to the Projects every two years for the reunion and a chance
to reunite with old neighbors and celebrate old times. I can see it
in their eyes; these people are also haunted by the exquisite
rhapsody of spending their early lives with each other in this
1950's place of enchantment - the Amsterdam Public Housing
Projects. People from other localities and other eras may find this
an odd sentiment to hold about a place that implies poverty and
plight. We had that in abundance, but we also had hope, dreams and
aspirations. That so many of us used our hopes, dreams and
aspirations to defeat poverty and plight with such a high degree of
success is the source of this sweet ghost that haunts us, as well
as, what makes our nostalgia for the past understandable. This is
what makes us unique. We love savoring the sweet ghost of our past.
My first book about the New York City neighborhood once known as
San Juan Hill was a coming of age story that focused on a young boy
growing up there. San Juan Hill is the area encompassing 60th to
64th Streets, West End Avenue to Amsterdam Avenue. That book was
written in the traditional story telling prose form. It featured
some of the people you will meet in Poetic Portraits, but they were
presented in San Juan Hill to advance the protagonist's story. Here
you'll meet them and many others, in a whole different way. The 191
people from the Amsterdam Public Housing Projects you meet in this
book are viewed in individual spotlights that focus solely on that
person. The plot emerges as the information gleaned from each
portrait poem is woven together to tell the story of the people of
1950's San Juan Hill. I have spent many hours (and sometimes days)
with each of them in my memory trying desperately to capture what I
feel is the exact essence of each, at least as I saw and remember
them. In spending this time reflecting on all of the people I know
from those times in the Amsterdam Projects, I'm struck and
impressed by the amazing array of people who lived there. We were
in many ways a global village and that is one aspect of the story
told in this book.
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