A Quote by Helene Yorke

When I first got to the city, I had no money. I was living in Queens amongst boxes and lived in Harlem and didn't have a couch. — © Helene Yorke
When I first got to the city, I had no money. I was living in Queens amongst boxes and lived in Harlem and didn't have a couch.
In Harlem, black was white. You had rights that could not be denied you; you had privileges, protected by law. And you had money. Everybody in Harlem had money. It was a land of plenty.
I got a job as a children's librarian at PS 175 in Harlem, and that changed everything. That was an epiphany. I didn't know Harlem existed. I didn't know there was such a place, because I grew up in white Queens, where five miles is 100 miles.
I think that one of the visions that is closest to reality is the cardboard city in the subway station in Tokyo, which is based very closely on a series of documentary photographs of people living like that and of the contents of the boxes. Those are quite haunting because Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in these cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes.
Harlem is really a melting pot for a lot of different people. When you look at Harlem - and I lived there almost five years - most of the people who live in Harlem are transplants. They migrate to Harlem from another place.
When you look at Harlem - and I lived there almost five years - most of the people who live in Harlem are transplants. They migrate to Harlem from another place. A lot of them are from the south, so they bring those southern influences with them.
I got an agent when I needed one, when I had a contract negotiation for the first time. I was doing the Second City E.T.C., and I got invited to audition for the last season, it turns out, of 'In Living Color.'
I'm from the burbs. I've been in the hood, but I don't live there. I have lived in the hood, but I don't live there anymore. I lived in Harlem, and that was crazy, even though Harlem is a lot nicer than it used to be.
I grew up in Harlem, a block away from what was then the most crowded block in New York City, according to the 1950 census. Something like ten thousand people lived in one city block.
But one sets of grandparents lived on Davidson Avenue in the Bronx and one lived in Manhattan and I had an aunt and uncle in Queens, so in my heart I was a New Yorker.
I was 19 when I got my first passport as an adult. I had moved from California to New York City and was living out of a suitcase, staying with friends. I'd just finished filming my first movie, 'Ordinary People,' but I didn't know whether acting was what I wanted to do with my life.
My grandmother told a story that when they used to leave from Southampton to go into the City, because he had apartment buildings in Queens - I was born in Astoria, Queens - they had apartment buildings in Queens and Manhattan, different businesses, and she wanted to pick blueberries on the side of the road and he wouldn't stop, so my grandma used to throw her purse out the window. She never had less than $4,000 cash, back in the 20s, and he would then stop the car and she would pick blueberries. And, he never had a record.
I'm from Queensbridge. It's the largest housing project in New York. And growing up in Queens, it was different because I wasn't really experienced in traveling to the City. I never really got used to the City.
I got into Kiss before I got into anybody. The first thing I heard was 'Detroit Rock City.' I heard it in the school library, where I lived.
I got into Kiss before I got into anybody. The first thing I heard was Detroit Rock City. I heard it in the school library, where I lived.
I especially like Duke Ellington jazz, which is a little more... I lived in New York for a while. I lived in Harlem for a bit, and I just fell in love with the idea of that era of New York, that jazz era, especially jazz in Harlem.
I didn't know Harlem existed. I didn't know there was such a place, because I grew up in white Queens, where five miles is 100 miles. So I went to the school and, being a smart cookie - as they called us in those days - I had a million questions. How did this place exist? How come I didn't know about it? Why are people living like this? Do they want to live like this?
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