“Look all the way beyond the end of the avenue, uncle. What do you see?” Hamza stretched out his arm. Perhaps two miles away, past the signs for the Korean bodegas and Arab cafes, the Italian pizzerias and American ice-cream chains, stood the enormous piers of a suspension bridge. Its gray towers loomed with the arrogant symmetry of a Manhattan skyscraper. “That’s the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.”

“It’s so big, it’s terrifying.” Omar Yussef finally succeeded in pulling the zipper of his windbreaker up to his chin.

“The engineers had to factor the curvature of the earth’s surface into the design, because it’s so massive. It expands and contracts with the heat of the season so that in the summer the road hangs three meters lower than in winter.” Hamza shook his head in wonderment. “Think of that. Can you imagine our people building something like that in the Arab world? This is an amazing place, uncle.”

“Is it just big bridges and tall buildings that you like about New York?”

“The Arabs in this neighborhood, Bay Ridge, are mainly Palestinian. In the direction of Manhattan, you’ll find Atlantic Avenue, where there’re a lot of Yemenis. Then in Queens you have the Moroccans. Whenever any of them makes enough money, they cross that bridge to Staten Island, and they buy a nice big house.” Hamza turned and swept his arm along the avenue. “Bay Ridge used to be Norwegian and Irish, until about a decade ago. Then our people came, and soon it turned into Little Palestine. Eventually all the Palestinians will have become prosperous and crossed that bridge. This place will be taken over by some other poor immigrant group. Little Palestine is destined to die young.” He looked closely at Omar Yussef and raised an index finger. “But in big Palestine, you’ll still be living in the same dirty refugee camps. There’s no alternative back home, no way up. That’s why I like it better here.”