Inventing Gotham: New York City and the American Dream

Andrew Meyers
aam14@columbia.edu

Langston Hughes, Visitors to the Black Belt (1949)

You can talk about
Across the railroad tracks-
To me it's here
On this side of the tracks

You can talk about
up in Harlem
To me it's here
In Harlem

You can say
Jazz on the South Side
To me it's hell
On the South Side:

Kitchenettes
With no heat
AndGarbage
In the halls.

Who're you, outsider?

Ask me who am I.