A Few Thanks
Here are some things I am thankful for as we present the winners of our third Nicest Places in America search:
Harding Park, New York. For years, I’ve driven south to JFK airport from my home and looked down from the Whitestone Bridge between Queens and the Bronx to wonder about the tangled little neighborhood sticking out into the East River, with views of Manhattan. Out of nowhere, a resident named Lydia Clark-sumpter solved the mystery—and gave me a smile— by going to rd.com/nicest to nominate that collection of 236 homes. Turns out Harding Park began a century ago as vacation tents leased to blue-collar families and evolved, through remarkable twists and turns, into an exemplar of diversity and neighborliness—not to mention our winning place in New York State. Thank you, Lydia!
Nextdoor.com. I’m a Nextdoor user in my Connecticut community and love how its feed, essentially an online version of the bulletin board at the hardware store, brought people to our search. In fact, 19 of the 50 Nicest Places (including Texarkana and Harding Park) came from its members. Sarah Friar, Nextdoor’s CEO, served as a judge—thank you for your partnership!
My fellow judges. The panel included the nation’s leaders in hunger relief, positive media, kindness, and civility (see page 65). In an era of political division, they prefer to focus on all the ways that Americans pull together, and I’d put their expertise in American generosity against anyone’s. Thank you, judges, for insight into the submissions and your picks.
A big thanks goes to my fellow editors as well. To weigh the votes and select the single Nicest Place in America is my job, but this time I really needed their help. Write and let me know if I got it right. And
thank you, too, for reading.