Meet Tashi

Introducing Harlemite Tashi. She was born on Riverside Drive 53 years ago, and after being away for 15 years, she returned to Harlem with her husband when she was having her son.

In her own words, “...When I came back I felt a return to a community or a return to a sense of family. And… I have the experience of raising my child in an environment where people knew me as a child, which was incredible… The people that I referred to as Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so... suddenly were part of his world and their kids were his new Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so [and] that felt amazing.”

Tashi’s favorite place in Harlem is Riverside Drive, where her story began. She explained the contrasting experience of her time away from Harlem after college; “I love Riverside Drive, I mean when I left… [and] was looking for my first apartment, I would walk into these apartments and I would say ‘But there’s no light…, there are no trees... like where do people go around here?’... So for me coming back to Riverside Drive was very powerful. Like this strip and walking on my own, running, being with my kid as he has grown up. Meeting people in the neighborhood, we have all these… neighborhood friends from walking the dog… we have… music… And… Ralph Ellison was alive when I was growing up here and he was… a really good friend’s Godfather and there were writers in the neighborhood that… in addition to him… would always talk to us. It was such a vibrant community…”

“...When I came back I felt a return to a community or a return to a sense of family. And… I have the experience of raising my child in an environment where people knew me as a child, which was incredible… The people that I referred to as Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so... suddenly were part of his world and their kids were his new Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so [and] that felt amazing.”

Graciously, she told us more about the artist community she experienced growing up. “So my parents were young and hip when they moved here… And you know there was like, their whole scene, they would all have rent parties… and… my mom was a fashion designer and she was connected to the whole scene of artists. There were… writers and artists that lived in that building. A photographer lived right next door to us. There were musicians in the building. There was a record producer that had my apartment before my mom and dad took it over… So there was just a lot of socializing that I think always… connected the kids to this bigger community that their parents were involved in.”

We are thankful she shared her personal insight on Harlem history.