Writer Ernesto Quiñonez on New York

Working days while attending City College at night, I'd take the 1 and 9 train going uptown. I was always tired, my head hanging and my eyes insect slants. Then the train would come above ground near 125th Street, and to my left was the Hudson River and the long, long skies of New Jersey. Above them an orange-yellow sunset and white foamy clouds floating away from the city. Looking down I'd see children playing next to a building covered by living graffiti. To my right was Harlem and all the people dreaming in the projects. The Adam Clayton Powell Building looming far ahead, standing proud and tall among a community of gifted people. The train would pull out, and right before it went back underground at the 137th Street station, I could see women standing on fire escapes hanging freshly washed laundry as their children tugged at their skirts. They were all my mother.

Ernesto wrote "Bodega Dreams" and I met him once at a reading.