A few days before I got mugged in Williamsbridge Oval, I was thinking to myself about the surprising warmth and courtesy that I’d felt from Bronx residents in my first few weeks in the borough.

In August, I’d moved from rural Maine to New York City to study at Columbia Journalism School, and I’d picked Norwood as the neighborhood beat that I’d be covering through December.

When I arrived, pretty much the only thing I knew about the Bronx was that my friends from Manhattan and Brooklyn didn’t like to go there. When I told them that I’d actually chosen to cover a neighborhood in the borough, they looked at me like I was out of my mind.

So I was surprised when, after just a few visits, residents and business owners began greeting me with smiles, and story ideas. A bartender even nicknamed me Peter Parker.

In one of my class’s introductory lectures at Columbia, a wizened old professor had urged us to conduct ourselves with an attitude of “joyful entitlement”—as in, be persistent and purposeful, but don’t forget to be cheerful.

I tried my best to follow his advice, and, encouraged by the kindness that met me in my initial interactions in Norwood, I let more of my unguarded New England exuberance shine through. I smiled at people I passed on the sidewalk, and interviewed others on street corners.

Around 3 p.m. on Sept. 12, I had just left a meeting on East Gun Hill Road, and was walking through the Oval on my way to, of all places, the 52nd Precinct.

It was broad daylight. One man was jogging around the track, and another sawing away at some downed tree limbs, behind a fence.

As I walked through the southeast corner of the park and tried to exit, I ran into a young man who told me that the way was blocked by construction. I thanked him, and began retracing my steps.

As I turned, another young man was coming towards me, and I gave him a half-smile and nod as he walked past. Instead of returning it, he lunged, punched me in the neck, and knocked me flat on my back.

“Have a nice day,” he said, as he and his accomplice made off with $10 in cash and my iPhone. I was left to bend my glasses back into shape and finish my trip to the precinct — albeit with a different purpose.

The worst part of the mugging was probably the fact that I didn’t even end up with a good bruise to show my friends.

But in other ways, it has stuck with me. Three weeks later, I get uneasy when people brush close past me on the sidewalk. The expressions that I used to read as guarded or blank now seem a little more menacing.

But usually, I still smile. And most people still smile back.

Editor’s note: Nathaniel Herz is a student at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and an occasional contributor to the Norwood News.