You are currently browsing the stories about the Brooklyn neighborhood
All That They Can Be?
by JB McGeever 05/16/2012Neighborhood: Bushwick, Ridgewood, Uncategorized
The local recruiter is at my classroom door again and I really wish he’d stop doing this. When I explain that there are designated areas throughout the building for him to speak with students or ‘potential recruits’ as they’re called in his line of work, he apologizes profusely. In fact, his demeanor and etiquette is [...]
Old Enough To Die In Brooklyn: The Mortician’s Lament
by Chris Pomorski 05/10/2012Neighborhood: Cobble Hill, Featured
When the previous resident of my apartment, who was still living in it when my girlfriend and I viewed it for the first time, told us that the funeral home downstairs hardly ever held services, the effect on me was less than palliative. Jenna nodded thoughtfully in the way real estate shoppers are prone, apparently [...]
Hello Pizza
by Ernest Merrimont 05/07/2012Neighborhood: Prospect Heights
On a just-cold-enough-not-to-be-warm evening in April I am at work, delivering pizza; mostly on streets lined with brownstones. Down these lanes I pedal doggedly, lurching on an old blue/green mountain bike with a large wire basket mounted above the front wheel and a habit of breaking down with reliable frequency. Tall and thin with a [...]
In The Living Room Of The Beggar
by Glora Manuilova 04/13/2012Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Featured
He sat sprawled on the furthest side of the Q train, nose plumped with alcohol and ears flushed a chili-pepper red -- laughing so hard his breath left two giant spheres of fog on the window. The rest of us were bunched on the other side, in an attempt to escape the stench of human [...]
I Would Have Wasted Those Thirty Dollars
by Andrew Worthington 04/06/2012Neighborhood: Bedford-Stuyvesant
There is a siren screaming past outside my apartment but it has nothing to do with me. My roommate is in his room and I wonder what he is doing. I want him to come out so I can ask him what he is doing. But if he did come out I wouldn't be able [...]
A Frothy Goodbye
by Nicholas Soodik 03/26/2012Neighborhood: Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Featured
Every English teacher needs a café of his own, and my weekend joint for nearly seven years has closed. The Fall Café frothed its final latte in early December. I hope my students understood why their last batch of essays was returned later than usual. Signs of the café’s demise were written everywhere, literally. Last [...]
I Love You, U-Bet
by Candy Schulman 03/26/2012Neighborhood: Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay
When I was a young man—no bigger than this A chocolate egg cream was not to be missed Some U-bet’s chocolate syrup, seltzer water mixed with milk Stir it up into a heady fro—tasted just like milk You scream, I steam, we all want Egg Cream. [...]
To The Basketball Playing Men and Women of Letters
by Thomas Beller 03/14/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Caroll Gardens, Carroll Gardens, Manhattan, Upper West Side, West Village
I recently read a fanciful article in which a literary East/West all-star basketball game is imagined and scouted. Dave Eggers and Stephen Elliott are the starting back court for the West. Ben Marcus is cast as the starting center for the East not on the grounds of basketball skill but because, according to the writer, [...]
The Balcony
by David M. Sandford 02/03/2012Neighborhood: Long Island
We moved into our apartment on a cold, windy April day. April Fool’s Day, actually. Susan and I didn’t know many people in town and we were looking forward to making new friends. As the movers struggled to get the bed and sofa up the narrow stairs, I looked out the tiny window in our [...]
King of Handball
by Raanan Geberer 01/24/2012Neighborhood: Brooklyn Heights, Featured
By any standards, Mark Margolies, who is now in his late sixties, lived an uneventful life. He was modest and soft-spoken. Even after he graduated from Brooklyn College, he lived with his parents until he was 30, mainly staying in his room, working only sporadically, and reading philosophy books. Then, on a weekend hiking trip, [...]
Can’t Say No
by Maggie O'Connell 01/24/2012Neighborhood: Cobble Hill
You didn't say no. You never said no. You wouldn't even think of saying no. So, when he arrived at the door of my tenement apartment at 1AM, unexpected, unannounced, I didn't say no. I let him in, against all my instincts. "Hi. I was at the community center. We just finished working. We were [...]
Shana Tova!
by Simone Rainey 01/19/2012Neighborhood: Prospect Heights, Uncategorized
It was Rosh Hashana, 2010, and I had just moved into yet another new apartment, as I tend to do about once a year, sometimes twice. This place seemed good enough to fully unpack for, though, so there were boxes strewn around the floor, some open, some still taped tightly shut, waiting. But as much [...]
