The Good Old Red, White and Barbecue

clipped from www.nytimes.com Harlem Journal The Good Old Red, White and Barbecue Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY Limited space has long forced New Yorkers to celebrate Fourth of July rituals differently. As the rest of the country has backyard barbecues and pool parties, city dwellers cook lunches in tiny kitchens and carry them up to rooftops, or, if they can get a spot, they spread blankets in the parks. In Harlem, Dorothy Davis celebrates with a front-stoop cookout. Ms. Davis, 54, a full-time baby sitter with an encyclopedic knowledge of the comings and goings of her West 119th Street block, starts shopping weeks ahead for a communal feast. In a decade of yearly cookouts on the sidewalk in front of her building, Ms. Davis — known to neighbors as Dot or Auntie — has come to feed at least 50 relatives and neighbors.

FULL ARTICLE @ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/nyregion/04metjournal.html