It's been an eventful year for everyone, including Uptown Mom and family. Events about which I failed to blog in the past year include the opening of an absolutely wonderful new playground in Morningside Park between 116th and 117th Streets, which happily replaced most of The Playground with the Dangerous Equipment, the sad untimely closing of Antoinette's and the incredible privilege of being in Harlem on the night of November 4, 2008.
So one of my resolutions for the new year is more consistent blogging.
Happy new year everyone!
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4 comments:
Hi Uptown Mom -
Keep blogging ... looking seriously at buying in Harlem sometime in the next year or two and really like what you do.
Question for you - what do you do for schools for your kids? What do most parents do?
Thanks!
Karen
Hi Karen!
So I obviously have not kept my resolution w/r/t this blog.... I will try to do better effective immediately.
My solution to the school issue is different from most parents. Our school-aged child goes to Kinneret Day School, a bicultural American/Israeli school in Riverdale. It's affordable compared to other private schools, and he is bussed door to door. I feel bad that this causes him not to meet local kids at school, and so we work on keeping him involved in extracurricular stuff in our neighborhood. For example, he is currently loving his "big kid" Tae Kwon Do classes at Harlem Tae Kwon Do (just got a green stripe yesterday! very proud of himself).
Most parents' approaches are all over the map (I am not the only one sending a kid to Kinneret, but we are definitely a minority!). I see lots of kids, with and without parents, going to school by bus and/or subway each morning. "Harlem" refers to a really large area -- by some reckonings, nearly a third of Manhattan -- so the public school situation varies a lot. I am in the little sliver of Harlem that is part of the same school district as the UWS, although a block from my home that is not the case. In my immediate corner of Harlem, I'm aware of two exciting recent/current developments w/r/t public school. First, the local parents are pouring huge energy into PS 180, the Hugo Newman School, and seem very proud of what they are accomplishing there. In addition, local parents have been instrumental in arranging for a new charter school opening soon (next year I think?) that will be a bilingual school (French/English) serving the local Francophone (Senegalese) population as well as kids who do not speak French at home -- there is a lot of excitement about that as well.
We are loving raising our kids up here. I will try to get this blog back up and running -- thank you for reminding me that I have been remiss. In the meantime, I highly recommend subscribing to the Yahoo group harlem4kids -- huge knowledge base and lots of great people with great ideas. Also, while the yahoo group talks about all sorts of subjects, "Harlem4kids" started out as a project of local parents, who have been running a wonderful weekly storytime for little kids for more than two years now. They just lost their space because, VERY sadly, the wonderful gallery where they had been meeting is closing this weekend, but based on their website (www.harlem4kids.com), looks like they won't miss a step and are going to keep right on meeting. (For homebuyer, rather than parenting, insight, the yahoo group harlemhome is great too!)
Best of luck and hope to hear from you again.
Thanks - very helpful. The part of Harlem I am looking at is (I think) where you are: directly above Central Park, between Mornginside Park and 5th avenue, below 125th street. I have heard great things about PS 180, so that is good to know things are still going well there.
I do think Harlem is great for kids - streets are a little quiter, buildings are lower so there is more sunlight, lots of parks, strong community feel, and short commutes for us. My husband and I are pretty much sold on it but worried about what to do when our child reaches school age (don't have to worry about that yet).
I do have some concerns about how Harlem will weather the downturn, although I am getting more comfortable with this everyday as it seems to be holding on.
You are correct -- we live in the part of Harlem to which you may be moving.
I have grave concerns about how Harlem weathers the downturn, and the loss of Tribal Spears has intensified those concerns. But so far, I am impressed that the major developments in progress seem to be moving along, so more and more people are moving up here. Even in a downturn, more people can support more stores. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, I guess....
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