100 hours riding the 6 Train

We lived in City Island in the Bronx and each day we took the 6 Train from Pelham Bay Park to Manhattan and back, a one hour ride. I made my shopping in the K-Mart and J.Penney and so in the Pelham Bay Park Center, and ate at the most proletarian Thai food stall in the third floor of the Mall. I can honestly state that in three weeks saw not a WASP person (say tall, slim, blondish and clear eyes). Everybody I met in the Bronx was Afro-American, Afro-African and many many Caribbeans and Central Americans. I had spent months in New York in the winter of 1969 (my graduation foreign trip) and the Bronx was Jewish and Italian and Irish and remembered well the architecture and infrastructure. At first, I was rather amazed by the replacement of the population, but soon I got used to it and being a native Spanish speaker, I felt at home among the friendly Latinos. Moreover, people were polite, non-violent and cleanly dressed, sitting quietly in the train playing games on the phone or hearing music through earphones. The level of human noise, shouts and so, was zero. It was as if everybody had been on tranquilizers. In the seventies, there were many shops selling hard drinks, the owners had guns in sight against robberies, now I could not find one liquor store, and did not see even one drunk holding the brown paper bag with a bottle inside, as was so common in my former visit. The trains were old, the wagons jumped and made frightening mechanical noises, but fifty years ago that was normal and certainly better than Argentine trains; today - compared with the trains in China and Israel - the 6 trains are dilapidated wrecks. But clean and working. A hundred percent (!) of the personnel is African American, middle-aged obese men, and women, polite and efficient: as said,  the trains were clean and on time. They spoke strongly accented English, some exaggerated Black speech so that I understood none of the announcements but when asked face to face, they made an effort to communicate. Before traveling, I made a research on the internet about the physical dangers awaiting us and found maps with neatly delined dangerous areas, but in reality, the streets were clean and no menacing persons could be seen. I found the Bronx and New York in general totally pacified and safe. I can report not one violent scene and not even one naked knife or gunshot. Oh yes! The police shooting range is in City Island and lots of shots were heard during the day.

Summary:

In the last fifty years, a total replacement of the population took place. One wonders where the natives had gone, where are the Anglosaxons and the Jews. The current population, contrary to my internet impressions, is quieter and safer than it was then. No drunks nor angry Blacks on the train. It is less amazing and exciting a place than it was then, but now I am old and less excitable.

The infrastructure - transportation, traffic, water, sewage, communication, etc. - has been maintained and everything is working, but it is old and antique in comparison with younger, more advanced cities.

The air is pure and the water is potable. The food and cloth are cheaper and of better quality than Israel.

All in all, New York is an aging (maybe decaying) city and a good place to live.

Photo: The Pelham Bay Park Station. Source. This guy had a better camera and more talent than I.