Our fellowship was blessed to receive an invitation to travel to New York to do a concert and for my pastor to minister. IT was my first trip to NY and I must say that I enjoyed it. However, we spent some time in Harlem and I must say that I was grieved by some of the things that I saw.
First of all, I saw a lot of signs saying "Save Harlem" and such the like. As I walked down 125th St I went past the Apollo Theater (A memorable moment) and I saw a lot of vendors selling bootleg everything (from Kirk Franklin to Barney); gospel books on one side of the stand and occult, masonry, and islamic literature (etc.) on the other. I proceeded down to Lexington Ave and the displays became worse. The stands disappeared and were replaced with what appeared to be impromtu displays on the bare sidewalk. It was in these displays I saw everything from lost and found items to bootleg pornography videos with full-color covers.
At that point, I turned around because I had seen enough and I truly didn't need to see that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking NY at all. I had the opportunity to go to Mt. Vernon and visit family that I never met before. But, I feel that if they really wanted to save Harlem, a good place to start would be 125th St. Like I said, the trip, concert, worship experience and different areas of NY were wonderful. It's just that as I walked down that street, I could see the glory that has since departed.
Please, no offence to my brothers & sisters up there in NY, I'm just making an observation.
