Also NY

new york is not only the crazy times square, rockefeller center or fifth avenue. for a little more quiet, but perhaps less safe neighbourhood you can goto harlem (although depending where you go it can be crowded too)! which is what we did after washington square park. ofcourse most people know the apollo theater in harlem, where for example ella fitzgerald started her career at amateur night. however, we went to spanish harlem (96th - 120th st & fifth/third avenues), which is less well known, and less taken care of than harlem. the buildings are less fancy and the rents not as high as in downtown manhattan. in fact, it has the highest concentration of low income housing projects in the us. they do like to get their hair cut here. the opposite side of the street was lined with barber shops, i think we passed nearly 10 of them!

ah, i am now reading on wikipedia that al pacino was born on 108th street. perhaps in one of the above houses? (dont remember which street we were here, but somewhere around 110th-106th). i somehow liked this row of houses, but it was difficult to get a nice picture of them. we did not go there to check out houses, however. tomorrow a pic of what we went to see there...
here on flickr i posted another view of this row of houses, then it looks quite different, as you see!

Complicated pose

after sitting in the bus for several hours, we walked from chinatown to washington square park in greenwich village. when getting out of the bus, i realized it was a little colder than i expected and dressed for. brrrr. but still, i was defenitely wearing more clothes than the lady above!! i think they were taking pictures for some yoga-advertisement or so... altough to me it did not look that natural...

i just went to my beloved wikipedia for some more info on this park. its very big, and has quite a history! there used to be a native american village nearby, and they also owned this land. until the dutch (bad dutch!) attacked and drove them out. they did more bad stuff, as you can see here. until 1797 it was farmland, and then it became a burial ground (it was not yet part of new york at that time). in 1826 it became the washington military parade ground; a public space where volunteer militia companies responsible for the nation's defense were training. only in 1849 it became a park.... the remains of around 20,000 bodies still below ground....