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Stellar Decisions

by 12/04/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, Upper West Side

I was supposed to meet Christopher, but not the way I met him. The circumstances were of the sort that makes people believe in a higher power, which wasn’t exactly my thing. I’m not saying it is now, but I’m not saying it isn’t. It was early December, and I was two months into grieving [...]

The Threat

by 12/04/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, Flatlands

The wailing woke me at 3:00 AM. I tried to ignore it. I had to get up for work in a few hours. A bus and two subways, my commute to Manhattan was substantial. At first, I thought it must be a dog crying in the cold winter’s night. But after a few seconds, I [...]

Bensonhurst Nicknames ca. 1966 – 1980, Annotated.

by 11/12/2012
Neighborhood: Bensonhurst, Featured

[This list contains all the nicknames of kids I can remember from my childhood (age 7 - 21, approx.) in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.  See explanatory notes for each nickname below.] 1. Angelo Head 2. Rabbit 3. Ape 4. Frankie Airlines 5. Joey All-Star 6. Vinnie Barbarino 7. Turtle 8. Tortoise 9. Harry O. 10. Frank Asshole [...]

I Voted

by 11/06/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, Red Hook

The cafeteria is gently buzzing with chatter and fluorescence as I enter PS 27 on Nelson Street in Red Hook. Along the western wall of the room, volunteers are seated at a long row of tables with signs for electoral districts taped to the wall behind each one. Examining the reminder I received in the [...]

Storm Stories

by 11/01/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, News

Dear Readers and Writers, Do you have a good story of weathering the recent storm - or of a not so recent storm? Whether you were in New York for Carol or Irene, Bob or Gloria, Andrew or Sandy, we'd like to hear about your whirlwind love affairs with these rough and tumble out-of-towners. Accepted [...]

Crust, Mantle, Core

by 10/23/2012
Neighborhood: Bay Ridge, Featured

A sinkhole is threatening to swallow up 79th Street in Bay Ridge. Police, fire, city workers are on the scene. Supposedly, the sewers had something to do with it.“The beginning of the end,” laments a longstanding neighborhood resident on local TV. He is wearing a trucker hat and gold chain and undershirt. Behind him, elders [...]

The Love Seat (A Ghost Story)

by 10/21/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, Yorkville

As a boy in the early 1960s, I'd go up my grandparents' second floor apartment on York Avenue several times a week. Their hallway was lit by one low watt exposed bulb. The dark hall frightened me. Sometimes my fear was compounded when I'd hear fuzzy radio sounds coming from the usually locked basement. I [...]

Hiding in a Transparent City

by 10/10/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, Upper East Side

When I was fourteen, I auditioned for the School of American Ballet and was accepted. The school was too far from my home to travel back and forth everyday, so I lived in the dormitory at Lincoln Center during the week and travelled back to Long Island on the weekends. Every Sunday night, after a [...]

It’s Not A Cult

by 10/10/2012
Neighborhood: All Over, Featured, JFK/LGA, Letter From Abroad

"I have to get to New York" says the woman in front of me at the Portland, Oregon airport. "You don't understand, I have to get there." She repeats this urgently, in a slightly hysterical voice to a man in uniform behind a counter. I smile at her sympathetically. The flight to JFK has been [...]

When the Therapist Lost Her Mind

by 10/03/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, Gramercy Park, Stuyvesant Town

My wife Sarah and I had been seeing our therapist, Brenda, for years - both separately and as a couple. When I met Sarah, she was already seeing Brenda, who was then in training to be a psychiatric social worker after a long career as a high school social worker and Spanish teacher. After we [...]

Brooklyn Fields

by 10/01/2012
Neighborhood: Cobble Hill, Featured

New Yorkers have a different relationship to celebrity. You can't swing a cat in this town without hitting a big shot, so we are more restrained or dismissive or tolerant when famous people materialize. And we are exposed to them at an early age. My first celebrity encounter was in 1984. I was playing frisbee [...]

Larry’s Bench

by 09/25/2012
Neighborhood: Featured, Upper West Side

Larry Polshansky, dead. I cannot believe this. He wasn’t that much older than my husband, Gregory, who died of melanoma at age 56, five years ago. Larry chain-smoked, I remember. Maybe it was lung cancer that got him. I am walking my two dogs, Sophie, an eager-to-please golden retriever, and Henry Longfellow, a less-than-eager-to-please piebald [...]