Stories of the kindness of strangers and where it leads. Also, the unkindness of strangers and where that can lead. All of today's stories take place in the city most people think of as the least kind city in America: New York.
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Prologue
Tarzan Finds A Mate
New York City locksmith Joel Kostman tells the story of an act of kindness he committed, hoping for a small reward. From his book: Keys to the City: Tales of a New York City Locksmith. (13 minutes)
Song:
Runaway
In 1940, Jack Geiger, at the age of fourteen, left his middle-class Jewish home and knocked on the door of a black actor named Canada Lee. He asked Lee if he could move in with him. Lee said yes, and in Lee's Harlem apartment, Geiger spent a year with many of the great figures of the Harlem renaissance: Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, Richard Wright, Adam Clayton Powell. This is what Geiger ended up doing because of that experience.
A side note: It turns out there's a movie in which Canada Lee takes a white teenager under his wing and counsels him, as he did for Jack Geiger in real life. The film is called Lost Boundaries. (11 minutes)
Unkindness Of Strangers
How two next-door neighbors start treating each other badly, and how, once they start, they become obsessed with each other. Paul Tough reports. (14 minutes)