During my first New York City vacation (1996), I wanted to finish off all of the National Park Service sites in the city, one of which is Hamilton Grange at 141st Street. The B&B I was staying at was on West 14th, so I had a long walk ahead of me. I took in the Today Show window and then got a late breakfast at a diner near Carnegie Hall. Then I worked my way up through Central Park and on into Harlem.

Being from Iowa, pretty much anything I knew about Harlem had been filtered through the eyes of television, which fed all sorts of notions about safety. So I tried to downplay the tourist look a bit - hard to do when you take as many pictures as I do - memorized the maps, and so on. An overreaction to stereotypes? I don/t know.

After passing through the hustle and bustle of Midtown on my way up there, I was immediately struck by two things those first few blocks in Harlem. First, the sidewalks seemed to be almost deserted. There were only a few businesses - at least still in business, so there was probably little reason to be on the sidewalks, I suppose. But at one point I covered a three-block stretch without seeing anyone. Many of the buildings looked like they contained apartments, so there should be people in the area. But on that particular day, no one was out and about. (Some of the sidewalks were in an incredible state of disrepair, in conditions that I doubt would be tolerated for long in Midtown.)

Second, was the sun. In Midtown with its skyscrapers, there are alternating patches of bright sun and dark shadows. The shorter buildings in Harlem did little to keep the sun out, so it was a nice, bright sunny walk up to 125th Street.

125th must be the neighborhood downtown for Harlem. Here there were businesses. And lots of people. And the famous Apollo Theatre. I looked around and took a few pictures, and then it hit me - I was the only white person on those sidewalks. Once I realized that I was curious, so I paid close attention to it. The entire time I/d spend in Harlem, I/d only see one other white person, and this as I was getting close to Columbia University. No isolated individuals. No gaggle of out of place tourists. Now that President Clinton has established his out of office office there, perhaps that will change. Whether for the better or worse may depend on whom you ask.

When I got home from the trip and described my various sightseeing exploits to my friends and colleagues, when I got to the Harlem walk portion I was repeated asked the same question: *Weren/t you scared?* Like I said at the start, I had some apprehensions at first. But it was a beautiful sunny day, and I soon got caught up in the fun of exploring some place new. Those apprehensions were long forgotten by the time I reached 125th.

Mark Wasson, http://www.markwasson.com > Trips has detailed summaries of my trips