I was crossing 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard when I ran into a friend called Dr. Ben. When I was a kid, he was one of the first grown-ups to talk to us about Africa, telling us what was really happening on the Nile 5,000 years ago. He was always engaging, even if we kids had absolutely no capacity to evaluate the scholarship behind his revelations. So we met and went down the street to a café to talk.
When we walked in he announced that he wanted to sit in a particular booth. It turned out to be the same booth where Malcolm X used to hold court on a regular basis. You can still feel Malcolm’s ghost there among all the cards he sent to the restaurant owner from his travels in Africa.
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It was hard to deal with the narrowness of the geography that makes up zip code 10027. More often than not, I was halfway into covering something only to find out the location wasn’t in the zip code. If you’re on one side of 116th Street, you’re out of the zip code. It was frustrating! I went to hear one of the great choirs of Harlem at the church of Wyatt Walker, one of Martin Luther King’s early associates. After the service I went up to him and told him I was doing this article on zip code 10027. “Well, that’s not my zip code,” he informed me.
I went to Liberation Bookstore, which had been around for 30 years or so, and saw a sign in the window declaring that the owner was being evicted the next day. But again, it wasn’t until after I talked to him that I realized I was in the wrong zip code. It was a recurring problem.
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I wanted some real food, so one Sunday I stood around pondering what and where to eat. I was standing in front of a somewhat ordinary pizza place when I noticed a little sign on a nearby wall that read “Bayou Restaurant.” So I made my way up these rather steep stairs and was surprised to find myself surrounded by elegance. A velvet-toned waiter greeted me with, “May I help you, sir?” It was a very good restaurant that specializes in New Orleans-style and Creole food. And it was in the zip code!
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