I remember my mom telling me the story of when her and her brother first moved to New York. My grandmother’s first apartment when she got here was in New York City’s public housing Project “Polo Grounds” in uptown Harlem. I found it an interesting story to write about because I was extremely surprised when my mom told me that when she, my grandmother, and my uncle lived there that the Polo Grounds was a beautiful project development like most projects were back then. My mom was very young when they came to New York City I think she said she recalls being 13 years old at the time, so that would be around the 1970s. As she got older, over time the public housing environment changed: it became very nasty and very dangerous overrun with violence and drugs. This story is interesting to me because my mom told me that around the time she had my older brothers she knew she had to move out and be independent because living in the projects wasn’t something she wanted to expose her kids to as they grew up people were afraid of people in the projects and sometimes living in the projects can change people for the worse and for some is motivation to move out and do better. Polo Grounds projects are still to this day very dangerous and nasty and I hope it will get better over time.

– CR

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