my adventure in sunset park began on the corner of 51st street and 5th avenue, directly across from a wall-covering graffiti mural with enough effort put into it that it may have been painted legally, as it would’ve been difficult to create such a massive piece of art without being noticed. Large-scale graffiti of a similar style turned out to be a surprisingly common theme in the area, where collections of elaborate tags could be seen everywhere, making more of an effort to celebrate the surrounding Hispanic culture than to cultivate any kind of gang behaviour.
In fact, Hispanic culture was a very common theme all over fifth avenue. The majority of people walking around the area appeared to be Hispanic, and many of the stores lining the avenue were clearly owned by or targeted at Hispanic demographics. Finding these Hispanic stores grew far easier as I walked down the avenue to smaller numbered streets. While the area closer to 51st street was dominated primarily by higher-end cell-phone stores (I noted two T-mobile stores within two blocks of one another), the area closer to 43rd street was populated by mostly mom-and-pop grocery and clothing stores.
Surprisingly, along with this drastic increase in Hispanic stores came an equally drastic decrease in people. 51st street was crowded with tons of people (especially for a Sunday, which I usually associate as being a quiet day) bustling and moving about, it grew very difficult to find anybody in the 43rd street area.
After exploring the vibrant community around fifth avenue, I ventured over to the titular Sunset Park, where I encountered quite a few interesting sights. Most immediately was the sight of children with their families sledding down a snow covered hill at the front end of the park. It was clearly a family experience, and everybody seemed to have a fun time taking advantage of the weather.
Climbing up to the top of the hill, I encountered the second interesting sight. There was a wonderful, spanning view of all the buildings (some decaying, some newly renovated) below me, but what struck me was a church steeple shooting out of the skyline commandingly. Many Hispanic communities are very religious (not to paint in too broad of a stroke). This unmissable landmark is a fantastic symbol of just how seriously the Sunset Park takes its religious practices.
The sight that struck me most was on the way out of Sunset Park, however. I had only seen the Hispanic population up to that point, and had been searching desperately for a sign of the neighborhood’s greater diversity. As it would turn out, this came to me in the form of a literal sign. A standard “No Smoking” sign was posted on a fence at the outside of the park, translated in English, Spanish, and Chinese characters (likely either Mandarin or Cantonese). All three lines of text were equally sized, and none stood out as being more important than the other (translated signs will often offer their translations in smaller, seemingly less important, text). Although I only saw a small chunk of Sunset Park’s demographic in my most recent visit, the neighborhood is certainly populated by a highly diverse group of people who are all respected by one another.
