They say there are eight million stories in the naked city and if that’s true the city of New York are the author of all of them. From Harlem to Queens, to Brooklyn to the Bronx, and even Staten Island, the streets are paved with unforgiving tales of disdain, destitution, and hopelessness because the city takes no prisoners. The streets of New York have spawned some of the most notorious underworld criminals in the history of America - Al Capone, Nicky Barnes, John Gotti and Frank Lucas, only to name a few, that ran the streets of New York by hook or crook. If there was a dollar to be made best believe it was going to be made - extortion, prostitution, drugs, thief and murder - bottom line was that a nigga was gonna eat by whatever method availed them. Even today, though the names have changed on the streets the game would never ever stop, it will always remain the same.

Growing up in Harlem in the early seventies was sort of paradise, a Mecca for a young black boy like myself to be attracted to this new found world that I never knew existed and it was there where I would earn my first degree-a P.H.D in common sense. Learning all the ghetto politics of juvenile delinquency such as playing hooky from school, short cons, gambling and petty theft’s, I was behooved by the thrill of it all and took to it like a fish takes to water. You learn intuitively how to survive in the ghetto by wits and fists and unwritten guidelines. You learned if you wanted to continue breathing. One of the earliest rules I learned was to hear no evil, see no evil, and damn sure never speak no evil because the streets were always watching! It was common knowledge to all who the killers were, who was connected, who was the pushers and what spots were off limits to stick-up. Though murder was, and still is, a way of life on the streets, you know if a person got murdered, ten times out of ten he deserved it - your hood was the safest place in the world. Back in the day, old people, mothers and children could walk down the street without fear of being robbed or touched only because everybody looked out for each other. Even if by some small chance someone did violate the rule, like the man who once robbed an old lady for her Social Security check from a neighborhood check-cashing place. It would be years later that before something like that would happen again, because the violator would always be caught, thrown in a trunk, beaten over a course of two days, a inch away from death, then tied to the very gate of the check cashing place where he had robbed the old lady of her money. He’d be left nude, with a bloody note pinned through his flesh that read, ‘I will not rob old ladies ever again.’ written one hundred times. Street justice - city of New York

But even in such horrid conditions, the beauty of the street of New York has spawned some of the most famous, talented and gifted people the world had to offer. Sports stars such as Michael Jordan and Lew Alcindor, AKA Kareem Abdul Jabbar, noted spiritual and political leaders such as the Honorable Louis Farrakhan and Collin Powell and of course rap legends Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur. The list can go on and on. It was a haven for artistic talents to hone their craft and unfurl for the whole world to see. The streets of New York is a Mosaic melting pot where each generation learns from the latter and tests your heart to find out what kind of person you really are and leaves you with two simple choices: either persevere and stake your claim or fail and bounce back to where you came from by whatever boat, bus or train you rode in on.

Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five said it all when they rapped about the streets of New York

“New York, New York, big city of dreams and everything in New York ain’t always what it seems, you might get fooled if you come from out of town, but I’m down by law and I know my way around!”

I, for sure knows my way around. And I know one thing; if you can make it on the streets of New York, you can make it anywhere - that’s my word!

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