Co-op City behind Harry Truman high school  in the Bronx — © Brian Rose

In many ways it’s a forbidding place, Co-op City behind Harry Truman high school in the Bronx. Tall housing blocks sprouting from nondescript parkland. The school is an architectural horror from the 1960s, and the housing towers are not much better. Co-op City may be home to tens of thousands, but to me it all feels cold and dehumanizing.

Nevertheless, as my son’s baseball game came to a close, a freshening breeze swept away the day’s clammy humidity, the sun broke through, and this place — so desolated much of the time — took on a certain presence — call it beauty, perhaps — in the fading sunlight as coaches and players drifted off the field.