As some of you know, living in the neighborhood through the Sunset Park shooting was tricky to navigate — to say the least. Also hard. 10 neighbors shot from 33 rounds a few houses away from Bobby Constantino whom I interviewed for this piece on gun violence. For years, family and acquaintances and some close friends outside of NYC have texted me with news reports of a bomb in Flatiron (which did affect some literary agent friends) or a gas explosion in the East Village (which did affect a Buddhist friend) or a fire in the Bronx as if the entire city exists inside one square mile. They’re concerned, it’s fair, but also ignorant of what crime’s really like here. For perspective, Springfield Missouri — a “gun positive” town — is about 160,000 people. My neighborhood, of Sunset Park shooting fame, is 130,000 folks like me, but mostly Chinese, Hispanic, Hasidic folks. They’re almost equal size. Springfield, MO had 2,400 violent crimes. Sunset? 390 violent crimes. — an order of magnitude less. We don’t encounter violent crime here. Or in the city in general. When we do encounter violent crime, it’s often because someone from another state or nationstate brought it into the city, often with a terrorist attack. Often from a gun they bought legally elsewhere — in the case of the mass shooting this month, the guy came from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and bought the gun legally in Ohio. So more of the same: it’s not Sunset folks who, generally, are perpetuating violence in Sunset. Not that this was always the case: the 70’s were wild, full stop.

When it happens, camera men just ride the subway down from midtown and put it on national news. So everyone in the country and often outside the country talks about it.

“Was this Sunset Park shooting near you guys?”

Almost always we say “no, that’s miles away.” This time was different. Way, way different. This one happened to be the very same subway stop we and guests have used for years.

We don’t — repeat — do not encounter shootings or violence on the regular in Sunset Park. I’m 6x more likely to experience violent crime in my home county of Marion in Illinois. So this stuff is woefully abnormal and traumatic for neighbors. Imagine a 16-year-old girl on her way to high school in the subway car ahead of the shooter (because of the morning commute timing, this train was full of students). Imagine a grandma (who doesn’t own a vehicle) on her way to the grocery store or doctor. All of the Pre-K, 3K, Elementary, Middle and High Schools were on lockdown, just in case, for basically the entire day. Families were split because of commute (parents left early for work, couldn’t get a train home and waited 3 hours for a ferry or had to pay extra surge pricing to get an Uber home) or because kids were locked down in school. Everyone was emotionally and physically exhausted.

We had already planned to do something generous for our neighborhood for Easter / Passover, but our idea became a response to the hatred. For years we’ve done Third Saturdays at our house: marathon brunches where we invite literally everyone we know in the city and neighborhood to come and eat and make something and talk about ideas that matter. Sort of a salon that goes from 10am to midnight. Tara texts 330 people (we use a subscription app for $5/month to keep track of all of the people who have asked to be invited!). I’ve cooked thousands of eggs benedict dishes over the years, lots of charcuterie boards, soups. One time we sewed 140 wedding napkins. Shared comics. Songs. Stories.

This Easter, I wanted to do a bit of a jubilee. Then a man came and shot up our subway station down the street from Bobby. We had a neighborhood unity event already in the park, but I wanted the Third Saturday folk to show a presence. It wasn’t enough for me to get right back on the D train and N train, personally. I wanted our crew to have a presence.

So we had people bring all their spare change and small bills. I added in some $20s and bigger stuff. We loaded up some 500 eggs with hundreds of dollars.

Then we hid them all over the actual Sunset Park and emailed the Community Supported Agriculture and Sunset Park families early in the morning.

I know of one seven year old that found 20 eggs and a minimum of $20 is a lot for a seven year old.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t want to just show love where there had been hatred. I want you to, too. Easter isn’t just about practicing resurrection on one day. But about practicing resurrection throughout Eastertide. And I know I have solidarity in the neighborhood with my Jewish friends who are celebrating Passover and my Muslim friends who are also celebrating Ramadan.

So how about this:

How about in the next 40 days, if you’re a person of means with spare change or some small bills, you get together with your kiddos and add some of your change and small bills to leftover easter eggs. Then come hide them in Sunset Park. Maybe share this post around to inspire folks in the region to shower some love on Sunset Park. You’re welcome to comment below or tell the Discord when you’ve done so, but I would love to shower this neighborhood — momentarily a scene of hatred this month — with more love and grace and jubilee. If you want to sponsor a set of eggs, you can always give towards that, but I’d recommend sending some yourself.

Because the truth is, it was fun to give kids the grace of a disproportionate amount of cash. Gave them something to take their mind off of the madman who disrupted their route to school.

Who knows?

Neighbors might even meet each other, argue about meaningful ideas over eggs benedict, and figure out — once and for all — that we’re not all that scary after all. It’s almost as if that one guy told us to love our enemies and love our neighbors because, in the end, they’re the same people.