Won over by easy-going charm, you decide to let this boy show you around New York. You are both apprehensive and excited because back home in the shetl, this would definitely not have been allowed. You decide to leave this part out of your next letter home to your mother.

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"I'm Isaac", he says, introducing himself.

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"Sofia", you reply.

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Isaac offers to buy you lunch. This is the first time you ever had a hamburger and you like it but still prefer your mother's borscht. Over lunch, Isaac, tells you how he and his parents came over from Warsaw, Poland 10 years ago when he was 'just a kid'. Since then he has grown up in a tenement on Canal Street that, from his description, is exactly like your cousin's place. His story is like many new immigrants, he says. You work long hours at some horrible job trying to save enough money to escape from poverty. Many "real Americans" look down on the new immigrants and are trying to pass laws to restrict new immigrants coming from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Italy.

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"They say that we bring crime and poverty with us. Some politicians even claim that we are the ones stealing American jobs. As if anyone would want to steal a job that pays .13 cents an hour and might get you crushed in some machine."

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"However, it's better than living in fear in Russia. Here Jews can be bankers or shopkeepers. In Russia you could hardly make a living as a Jew."

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Isaac nods his head in agreement as he devours his hamburger.

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After lunch, Isaac takes you down Broadway in the Hebrew District where you catch a Jewish play that is popular among the immigrants. He explains that life in New York is like being back in Europe. Most immigrants stick to themselves. He points his finger north down Broadway. "That way is known as Hell's Kitchen, where the Irish live. West of here is Little Italy and beyond that lies Chinatown."

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Isaac even pays the .05 cent fare for a subway ride to a place he calls 'Coney Island'.

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Coney Island is truly a sight you have never seen before. It is summer and throngs of New Yorkers have converged on Coney Island to sit at the beach or walk down the boardwalk. It seems that commerce never sleeps in New York. The boardwalk is filled with vendors selling everything from food to toys to umbrellas. Everything is lit up with electric lights. Coney Island is the most magical place you have ever seen.

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At the far end of Coney Island is a giant spinning wheel with carriages filled with people. You learn that this is called a Ferris Wheel, a new invention introduced in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair.

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On the ride home you tell Isaac that you are glad you bumped into him and wouldn't mind becoming friends. However, when he tells you that he is planning on moving west to the city of Milwaukee in Wisconsin you can't help feeling a little sad. It figures that the first friend you make in New York is leaving.

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