New York City is made up of thousands of criss-crossing worlds, microcosms and cultures that wind their way around one another and sometimes intersect.

It's always fun to leave my neighborhood and explore a new one, which is one of the reasons I loved gallery sitting this weekend. So many different individuals came to stroll through the exhibit this weekend-- young children, elderly women, middle-aged couples. It reminded me of how much rich diversity New York holds within it. Each person I spoke to had a story to share, a nugget with which to enlighten me. One woman I spoke to told me that she had lived on Grand Concourse in the Bronx since the 1970s and had watched just that one street transform over the decades. She told me how gratified she was to see that the Andrew Freedman Home had come to life once again after years of slumbering in the middle of a busy neighborhood. After we had walked around one of the rooms together, she asked me if I too was from the Bronx. I told her about my neighborhood in Manhattan's Upper West Side (see my photos above). "I'm not from the Bronx," I told her. But what I didn't say aloud was that I'd take home a small slice of her neighborhood when I went home that evening, carrying with me the smiles and the stories of the people I encountered.