Harlem Walking Tour

I occasionally see tour groups in my neighborhood, which I find very strange. Except for the nearby historic Apollo Theatre, I don't what a tour group hopes to see or why they would walk down Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the area's main thoroughfare.


Today I saw a group of young people lead by a foreign woman. She guided them with a sparkly flower-shaped bit of foam on the end of a stick and spoke in a French accent. Of course, it may have been an entirely different accent, but I think it was likely European. I can tell you, I do not excel at distinguishing other accents any more than I do other races. For instance, in a college seminar, I mistook a German accent for deafness. It wasn't until about three weeks into the semester that I realized it was highly unlikely for a deaf woman to be in a Contemporary Music seminar and that she was simply a foreigner. More interestingly, though, I discovered about three weeks before the end of the semester that the woman was dating (and lived with!) the professor. That discovery took some clever sleuthing—their secret was more well-hidden than the woman’s nation of birth.


French or otherwise, the tour guide on Frederick Douglass walked backwards, telling the group of eager tourists, "People are trying to move here because there is no room in Midtown." She nailed that housing issue right on the head. It's exactly what Ken and I experienced when we were looking for apartments. We found this great place in Midtown, but were then told that there was no room and we fled to Harlem.