”My brother and I moved to New York when I was 12 years old. We’d been living with my grandmother in Philadelphia, but she said it was time to go live with my mother. We didn’t want to go. When we got off the bus, I remember my brother grabbed my hand and said: ‘Watch out! The buildings are going to fall on us!’ We’d never seen such tall buildings. When he got to my mother’s apartment building in Harlem, I was shocked. Most of the doors were open. There were bums lying on the floor of the hall. I remember thinking: ‘This can’t be where we are going to live!’ I think the happiest moment of my life was when I was finally able to move out of Harlem.”
