new route=new running joy, but why the segregation?

I tend to run the same route all year round. In Harlem my route was along Riverside Drive Park....now in Brooklyn my route is Prospect Park. When I needed to increase my 4-5 miles I would just do another loop around the 3.3 mile park. Trying to avoid crossing streets and dealing with cars, I never changed up my route.....until today!

I must thank BrooklynRuns for the inspiration. I tried one of his routes combining Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery. The result was a glorious 9-mile run without redoing any loops. At first I thought it would be creepy running along a cemetery for five miles but it was quite pleasant and interesting. Along one part you get a straight look of the Statue of Liberty! Plus since I ran along the border of the cemetery I didn't have to keep crossing the street (limited car interaction). Although I do wish someone would clean up the trash along the cemetery.

This mini running tour of Brooklyn was also an anthropology demo ....The route by my apartment in Lefferts Gardens begins in an African American/West Indian community, the park is racially diverse, then you run a few streets by Park Slope and it's suddenly all white, then you run through Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park and realize you've entered "Brooklyn's Latin America". None of this is surprising, I have always known how segregated New York is. Sigh. I'd prefer all neighbors to be mixed.....like I'd prefer a garden with more than one type of flower.

"Consider the flowers of a garden. Though differing in kind, color, form and shape, yet, inasmuch as they are refreshed by the waters of one spring, revived by the breath of one wind, invigorated by the rays of one sun, this diversity increaseth their charm and addeth unto their beauty. How unpleasing to the eye if all the flowers and plants, the leaves and blossoms, the fruit, the branches and the trees of that garden were all of the same shape and color! Diversity of hues, form and shape enricheth and adorneth the garden, and heighteneth the effect thereof. In like manner, when diverse shades of thought, temperament and character, are brought together under the power and influence of one central agency, the beauty and glory of human perfection will be revealed and made manifest. Naught but the celestial potency of the Word of God, which ruleth and transcendeth the realities of all things, is capable of harmonizing the divergent thoughts, sentiments, ideas and convictions of the children of men." ~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá