I'm Aisha Roscoe, and you're listening to The Sunday Story from Up First.

You know that morning city park smell?

It's like the smell of dewy earth and fresh-cut grass and evaporating beer from the night before.

I love that smell.

Earlier this year, NPR's immigration reporter Jasmine Garst and producer Xavier Lopez spent a day in one of their favorite places in the world, a park in Queens, New York.

It's called Flushing Meadows Park.

It's my park. It's a couple of blocks away from where I grew up in Queens.

I also live in Queens.

Queens has been called the most diverse urban place on the planet.

Almost half of its population is made up of immigrants from over 120 countries.

And Fleshing Meadows Park is a microcosm of immigrant life.

This is a place where immigrants from all over the world come to get some fresh air and to relax

and to really just have fun, you know? It's also for Xavier and Jasmine, kind of like their backyard, where they can go anytime

they need to recharge and remember what really matters, to be in community.

For me, that place is actually a house.

Two doors down for my house. It's the home of my dear friend and

neighbor, Miss Veneta. I've lived in my neighborhood for 15 years now. All my kids were born here,

and we have gotten to know our neighbors very well between birthday parties and

christenings and, you know, helping each other when we get stuck in the snow and

just keeping an eye on each other's kids and dogs.

Yeah, that's Teddy who's always in the window of my other next door neighbor.

And Miss Veneta, she's like the heartbeat of this neighborhood for me.

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