This is part of a memoir series on my friendship with Renee who I met in college and focuses mainly on our escapades during our late teens and early twenties.
Renee grew up on the upper East Side of Manhattan. Her neighborhood was called Yorkville and I absolutely loved it. It includes Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion. Its southern boundary is East 79th Street, its northern East 96th Street, its western Third Avenue, and its eastern the East River. It was the kind of neighborhood that had endless restaurants, shops, and those markets with beautiful fruit and flowers outside. Having grown up in the suburbs and not having spent much time in New York, it was like nothing I was accustomed to.
Because we were college age we were old enough to roam around at our leisure, and roam we did. Renee shared her entire neighborhood and world with me and I am forever grateful.
Artsy Wanderer 
