Highland Boulevard
Highland Park

I never truly liked living on Highland Boulevard, despite immediate access to the imperfect but still decent Highland Park and Ridgewood Reservoir which gave me essential greenery. The position of the street and part of the park on a hill, above the surrounding neighborhoods, offered a less busy environment during the six years I was a resident. But it was just a bit too far from all that I loved in New York City. When I came home from work and entered my building, on the border between Brooklyn and Queens, I felt isolated. I had become an "outer borough" person, frequently calculating how long and how late I could stay in Manhattan before I had to endure a late night subway ride. Often I gave up and headed to Brooklyn. It was a psychological barrier to fully immersing myself in the places that were my reasons for being in New York. Even though I worked in Manhattan every day and on most weekends, I cut short my hours of participation in the glories of the "city" as many people called the famous island where all the true attractions were located.

Nevertheless, Highland Boulevard was in a practical sense my home from 1992 to 1998. I saw it in winter and summer. It was where in the beginning I had to use too many cans of toxic chemical spray to fight an army of cockroaches who felt I was invading their domain. It was where I stopped often in the evening on the way from the subway and bought beer at a local bodega in order to drown away the challenges of my life involving my job and family, only to see myself gain weight as a result. It was where I eventually quit drinking beer and alcohol entirely (for almost twenty years). It was where I returned to swimming dozens of laps at a time at the YMCA on Jamaica Avenue, followed by sitting nude in the sauna with my best friend, Rusty (José) and other guys, before heading to the open shower room (no partitions) and out, accompanied by Rusty who also spent many nights in my apartment which saved him having to pay rent elsewhere that he couldn't afford.

However, I didn't meet and become friends with any of my mostly Hispanic neighbors as I would have preferred. I always felt a little like an outsider. I did meet Rodney, a black male who was at various times a deli worker, a porter on Amtrak and a corrections officer at Rikers Island, who lived in a different section of my building and who I also photographed.

The somewhat large, faded lobby of my building was my passage to the rear elevator and eventually my sixth floor apartment which had windows that looked out on the rear of other buildings. In the far distance I could see the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge across Brooklyn. And in the middle of one night I saw one of my young Latino neighbors masturbating with the window shades up. I suspect that potentially being seen might have added some excitement for him. At least it provided a certain relatable entertainment for me.

Over time, I became discontent with the building and area because it felt increasingly as though something unexpected and negative would happen that could directly affect my safety. I thought a robbery or assault could take place in one of its sometimes empty hallways or inside the elevator which I sometimes skipped on the excuse that walking up or down six flights was good exercise. Then there was the time when someone started a fire in the basement laundry room that everyone relied on. And finally there was the day a black guy got shot and killed, with a male or female companion wounded, in an apartment that faced the boulevard. I heard the gunshots. I later heard that he might have been a drug dealer and there was a dispute with someone he owed although this was unconfirmed.

No neighborhood is all good or all bad. There were some quiet days I had on the street and park that bordered Jamaica Avenue and the Jackie Robinson Parkway (formerly the Interborough Parkway but few remember that name anymore). Highland Park was technically Brooklyn and often thought of as part of Cypress Hills (located down the steep hill), and it was next to the Cypress Hills Cemetery which loomed above it. But Highland Park was also next to the reservoir which was considered Queens. It seemed to want to associate itself much more with Queens neighborhoods such as nearby Woodhaven. Rusty and I explored Forest Park which was within easy bike riding distance.

When I returned to visit the neighborhood in 2018, twenty years after I moved away, it had become a part of my past from which I had been disconnected for so long but it was also a place of special memories. Time has a way of giving us perspective and then messing it all up with irrational but strong emotions. I vividly recalled my experiences when I walked around and took the images on this page. There is deep, new meaning for me in the locations.

I consider the 1990s to be my dark years, ones of frustration, endless work and emerging middle age. My life was on hold. I became dramatically older but didn't want to feel old just yet. There was a certain kind of waiting and waiting...for life to open a few doors and for the chance to once again absorb nutrients from my NYC roots which were not based in the soil of Highland Blvd.

After I moved away, there were another couple of major detours that occurred. I roamed, made errors, and took corrective actions while searching for another three years before finding a very different place to live. The aftermath was also imperfect but at least it allowed the trees and leaves of my soul to attempt to grow again.

Highland Boulevard and Highland Park were not my true destiny, but they were a part of my journey.