“When you can’t find your way home.”

– Don’t Dilly-Dally on the Way, Charles Collins (1919)

Every summer, when New York City closes one avenue to traffic, I make my Hegira back to Washington Heights where I was raised. 50,000 steps, eight-hours, 27-miles round-trip. I should have my head examined.

What’s even crazier is, I hated my childhood, as well as Washington Heights.

It was once a Mecca for Jews, “Frankfurt-on-the-Hudson”, a beautiful subway-accessible oasis. When Israel’s first president Dr. Chaim Weizmann made his only state-trip to America, he Davened  at Washington Heights Congregation, my Shul.

By the time I was growing up however, it was no longer beatific, indeed dangerous.

We played ball with, but also fought with our Irish and Italian neighbors. By my adolescence, they had been largely replaced by Blacks and Latinos. I remained consistent. No matter the hue of the fist punching me, I bled the same tint of red.

Because it remains my roots, the first 18 years of my life. When I met my wife a half-century ago, our first urban-hike was back to the Heights.

Every year I return there, I marvel that those familiar 150s -170s streets have somehow been miniaturized and moved to the Dominican Republic. Rarely do you hear English. Even business-signs are in Spanish.

A perennial destination is my 160th Street apartment. Around the corner........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)