Concrete Vineyard

Along the littered streets of Manhattan's East Harlem, past dingy doorways and under rusting fire escapes strolled a young Yaleman and a Boston University graduate student, wearing baggy old trousers and work shirt. As they passed, youngsters greeted them by name or tugged their arms. Lounging tenement dwellers nodded brusquely in their direction. In a neighborhood traditionally hostile to strangers, that signified acceptance. It was also a victory for what the students stood for: the church.

The boys were part of a radical Christian experiment: the East Harlem Protestant Parish. With 21 other students (twelve boys, nine girls) from Colby, Swarthmore, Colgate, Union Theological Seminary and other Eastern and Midwestern colleges, they had forsaken beach or mountains to spend their summer vacations in one of the country's most densely populated, crime-ridden areas. Their mission: to practice Christianity.

Few Illusions. The East Harlem Protestant Parish consists of one church building, three store-front churches and several recreation halls and offices, all within a few blocks of each other, north of East 100th Street. It serves a 21-block area containing some 30,000 people, most of them Puerto Ricans and Negroes. The project is supported by eight Protestant denominations (Baptist, Congregationalist, Evangelical United Brethren, Methodist, Mennonite, Presbyterian. Reformed Church. Evangelical and Reformed), is regularly served by seven young ministers (two are women) and a staff of ten workers.

Some of this year's college missionaries in Harlem are studying for the ministry, others are majoring in education, sociology, law. Most have religious backgrounds, but at least one is from an agnostic family. They went to East Harlem with few illusions; each one was warned beforehand not to take along any valuables. From a $90 kitty that each brought from home, they draw $1.25 a day for food. In groups of four and five, they set up housekeeping in grubby, cramped little walkups that one described as "cleaned-up ratholes." They sleep in borrowed bunks, cook, wash and eat in primitive kitchens, wage an endless war against mice and cockroaches. It is a far cry from campus life.

Reason to Live. Their main task is to work among youth in East Harlem's concrete vineyard. Occasionally they make peace among warring street gangs, stage drives against narcotics, or organize meetings to urge reforms. But most of their work is less dramatic. Both boys and girls handle groups of children ranging from three-year-olds to teenagers. They hold Bible classes, teach handicrafts, chaperone teen-age dances at church recreation centers, take youngsters on trips to beaches, museums, ball games, or on hikes and camping trips. When they find that their charges belong to a street gang, they often try to organize handicraft classes or canteens for the whole gang. They continually call on parents to discuss the problems of the children they work with.

In one tenement, the college boys began by welcoming the building's youngsters to their apartment, eventually got almost all of them to join church youth groups. Neighborhood men sometimes suggest that the boys join them for a beer (although most of them do not ordinarily drink, they make a special point of accepting such invitations).

The collegians do not expect, in a few months, to transform their charges into fervent churchgoers. Their long-range purpose: "To show people that the gospel is concerned with every phase of life--to give them a reason to live."

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