The Walk of Life

There are a whole lot of candidates for how you can fill in the blank to this sentence:

• New York is one of the best ____ing cities in the world.

I can think of one word that many New Yorkers like to use, but I’ll save that for another blog.

For this drill, I would say that...

•  New York is one of the best people watching cities in the world.
• New York is one of the best eating cities in the world.
• New York is one of the best walking cities in the world.

Every day, I really put that last sentence to the test.

I love walking Uptown, Downtown, Midtown, Chinatown -- pretty much anywhere with a town in it.

In the two weeks I have been here, I have not yet stepped into a taxi.

But I’ve almost been hit by a bunch of them.

For me, I just prefer walking.

Saturday was one of the most beautiful days of all-time, a perfect day to do so.

And walk is what I did.

In fact, I just used the google maps to calculate that I walked a grand total of 9.3 miles on Saturday.

Walking around Manhattan also gives you a perfect opportunity to do the two other “ings” -- people watching and eating.

With a vendor on every street corner, or so it seems, it takes very little money or effort to feed your appetite.

You can buy three falafel for $1 or a small bag of hot roasted peanuts for $2 or a chocolate dipped ice cream cone for $3.

Those, of course, are just hypothetical things that I could’ve possibly done in the last day, but not necessarily things that I actually did.

(Yes I did.)

Eating off the street, so to speak, has become part of my daily routine.

Honestly, its just way too easy and way too cheap.

But unfortunately, not for everyone.

Friday, while I was buying my $1.25 morning muffin from a street vendor, a lady walked right up next to me and quietly asked if I could buy her one as well.

Which I did.

I certainly am not pointing this out for what I did, but rather for what she did.

You can't make it two blocks in Manhattan, sometimes one, without seeing your worst nightmare.

The number of homeless in this city may be on the decline from years past, but the bottom line is one is too many.

I certainly understand that there are A LOT of factors that I certainly don't understand.

But the only thing that I can see is their situation.

How they got to this point is up to my imagination.

This has never been a political blog and I'm not about to start now.

But no matter what party you come from, the day you can look at someone so down on their luck and have no feeling for them, that is a bad day.

According to a report called “Hope”, the Homeless Outreach Population Estimates, there are 3,111 unsheltered individuals in the five boroughs of New York.

That’s 783 more than last year, a 34% rise, which is 9.3 miles past staggering.

The good news, I think, is that the number is nearly 1500 fewer than it was just five years ago, a 29% decline.

According to the “Hope” report, there are nearly 2700 street homeless in San Francisco, 2000 in Seattle, 1500 in Chicago and 25,000 in LA.

Yes, 25,000.

Fortunately, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people across these united states helping those in need on a daily basis.

In just the New York area, there are more than 1,200 nonprofit soup kitchens and food pantries helping homeless and low-income families.

Honestly, the people that take the time out of their lives to help others with theirs just don't get enough attention.

And let there be no doubt, attention is not what these saints are looking for.

They are just trying to make a difference.

One person at a time.

And its working.

I’ve seen it.

The other day, a very hot day in this concrete jungle, I saw a doorman approach a homeless man, who lives right outside that building.

The doorman called out, “Fred, this is for you”, as he handed him a cold bottle of Gatorade.

The fact that the doorman did it was great.

The fact that he knew his name told me that he had done it before.

A random act of kindness.  What a concept.

Truly, inspir-ing.