Ade Adepitan

What most amazed you about your experiences in New York and how the city functions?
I was amazed by its size, New York is immense! I was surprised that most people don't cook at home, they order three-course meals delivered to their homes mainly through a company called Seamless, which is similar to apps like Deliveroo and Just Eat. They don’t have that British obsession with cooking at home that we do, fuelled by our celebrity chefs and TV like Bake Off and Masterchef.

How does the US rail network compare with your experiences of travelling in the UK?
I was pleasantly surprised at how hassle-free travelling on the network was. I travelled from Greenwich into NYC. The station had lifts that worked and the train was on the same level as the platform so I didn't need any assistance to board the train, unlike over here. Getting off at Grand Central was also very simple with ramps, lifts and escalators everywhere. I wish more of my journeys in the UK could be the same.

You looked at the gentrification of Harlem during your filming. What parallels did you see with your own experiences of growing up in the UK?
There were many similarities, especially with London. East London has changed drastically and some parts of it are unrecognisable. Hackney, Stoke Newington, Bow, Stratford, Bethnal Green all look and feel very different to when I was growing up there. House prices have sky rocketed, different types of shops have opened and the demographic of all those areas has started to change dramatically.

The big difference, like many things in the US, is that race always seems to be a major factor. Harlem is the spiritual home of black culture and carries a huge amount of importance among the black community. The tension seems to be coming from the ruthless nature of the landlords and estate agents who are taking advantage of the locals (who generally tend to be black) and force them out with what some people would see as unethical tactics.

I suppose the closest comparison you could make to London would be Brixton, which used to be known for having a large black community, and earlier Notting Hill. But the difference is that both these areas seemed to have made it work, especially as the latter has the carnival. In Harlem I fear this won't be the case - from my short experience in the US I learned that rich and poor rarely live in the same community and sadly neither do black and white - which probably has something to do with their recent history.