The neighbourhood

Let me take you for a quick tour of the neighbourhood:
First there's the high school right outside our apartment building. Every morning I see about 100 'eager young minds' lolling in the street until the guy at the door gives a shout for everyone to go inside (which is exactly the time I leave to go to work - around 8.10am).

At the corner of our street with 8th Avenue there was a restaurent that just closed down, since the entire building was bought by somebody with bigger and better plans. This might have something to do with the fact that only last week a swanky 24-hour restaurent opened on the other side of the avenue a few streets down. In between these two establishments are a number of gay bars, the four elderly guys always sitting on their front porch drinking booze when i walk by, the countless dry cleaners, more bars and of course a Starbucks.

Look uptown a block away and you'll see the 'local' cinema showing independent movies i've never heard of. About 1km further up and you'll see the lights of Madison Sq. Garden. From there the rents and the buildings go sky high...