A broader New York state of mind

On a recent late morning, three Barnard girls left African dance class and ventured across Morningside Park for baked goods. As one of those three girls, I learned a couple of things that morning. First, I should stick to writing and not dancing as my art. And second, Levain Bakery on Frederick Douglass Blvd. between 116th and 117th Streets is my new favorite local bakery.

If you’re like the majority of the people I ranted to about oatmeal raisin cookie heaven, you had no idea that there’s a Levain in the Upper West Side that opened in March. Most of us have been taking the subway down to West 72nd St. for our cookie fix, but now Levain is just a hop, a skip, and a jump through Morningside Park.

As I took the 12-minute stroll, I got the feeling that the park acts not only as a physical barrier between Columbia and Harlem, but moreover as a psychological one. Although it’s only a block east of the School of International and Public Affairs and the Law School, most students I talk to have never been in Morningside Park, which is quite a lovely place during the day. It probably takes just as much time to walk from College Walk to Levain Bakery on Frederick Douglass Blvd. as it does to get to Silvermoon Bakery or to Artopolis, but my sense is that the park stops Columbia students from visiting Levain on a regular (or even a once in awhile) basis.

From one side of the park to the other, the look of the streets—from the upkeep of the apartment buildings to the type of retail—immediately shifts. Broadway and Amsterdam are packed with Starbucks, Pinkberry, Milano, and other relatively high-end, brand name eateries. On the other side of the park, I passed some small food and stuff joints before I suddenly came upon Levain, which, along with an Italian restaurant across the street from it, didn’t quite fit in with the other storefronts on the block. With its shiny awning, Levain seemed to signal urban renewal and the arrival of upscale shopping and shoppers on an otherwise rundown street.

Most people automatically associate shiny awnings with safer neighborhoods. But in truth, there was nothing less secure about Frederick Douglass Blvd. before the arrival of an Upper West Side bakery. My friends and I didn’t feel nervous at all walking in the park, but we remarked that we’d been told since we were first-years that we should be, even during the day. In fact, it was remarkable to me that, unlike when I walk in Central Park, it was quiet and there wasn’t anybody loitering. Crossing Morningside Park expends no more physical effort than walking south on Broadway does. However, it’s the created sense of insecurity and difference that prevents us from going a little east for a bite to eat. “Blight” and “insecurity” are, much of the time, just states of mind.

When we arrived from our pleasant stroll across the park, Levain was empty inside on that late weekday morning, but the bakers were hard at work in the kitchen, and there were already many trays of freshly baked cookies ready to be sold. We settled on one oatmeal raisin and one chocolate chip walnut cookie, felt the immense weight of the warm baked goods in our hands, and decided we had to come back.

Except part of us probably knew that we wouldn’t, realistically, become regulars at this Levain Bakery (word of caution: it’s going to be my new date spot, since the chances of running into someone I know there are pretty slim).

There’s a paradoxical saying that New Yorkers are the most provincial people in the world. In the city with the greatest variety of products and services imaginable, New Yorkers stubbornly continue to frequent the same local grocery store, fruit stand, and coffee shop. What makes New York a unique city, though, is the particularity of each of its neighborhoods, so that within a few blocks the vibe on the streets might change completely. We’re lucky to be situated where we are at Columbia because we have an array of neighborhoods accessible to us within a few blocks’ radius.

One important way to ease the tensions between Columbia and its neighbors would be to cross the imagined barriers that keep us within a 10-block comfort zone and to frequent the street life in other neighborhoods. After all, it’s only by crossing the park that you’ll find out what sweet surprises lie on the other side.

Jessica Hills is a Barnard College senior majoring in political science and French and Francophone Studies. She is a former associate news editor for the Columbia Daily Spectator. Urban Dictionary runs alternate Fridays.