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The Super With The Toy Face: Redux
by Ennis Smith 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Harlem
[When the site first published Ennis Smith's "The Super With The Toy Face," its impact was felt immediately--not just on the site, but on the literary history of the United States. Smith has sent us a revised version of the piece, which we are happy to publish below. We're going to keep the original up, though, [...]
Thanksgiving With The Blonde in The Brown Jacket
by Timothy Braun 10/31/2006Neighborhood: Harlem
If you find yourself awakened by an eccentric, foul-tempered neighbor called el Jefe in the hallway of an apartment building known for its vermin while fully installed with a vodka hangover and reeking of pizza-flavored snack treats, be as pleasant as possible. Especially if you are seeking assistance in the forcible entry of your own [...]
The Super With The Toy Face
by Ennis Smith 10/24/2006Neighborhood: Harlem
[A few months after this piece was originally published, Ennis Smith sent us a revision which we have also published here. Look at the two versions side by side and see if you learn anything about how revision figures in the writing process. --Ed.] They called him the neighborhood watchdog. He was the super of the [...]
Scrambling Along the Roots and Rocks
by Jessica Allen 08/10/2006Neighborhood: Harlem
We took the train to the very top of Manhattan, exiting the subway into a neighborhood of large boulevards and boarded-up storefronts. Black sedans cruised by and occasionally stopped to ask us if we needed a taxi. At 9:30 on a Sunday morning, it was already steamy. This was only our fifth Sunday in the city. [...]
Dispatch from under the Overpass
by Steven Tweddell 01/12/2006Neighborhood: Harlem
It’s weird, how often you’ll find in out-of-the-way urban areas—below an overpass, next to a river or stream, next to railroad tracks—a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, unmatching dirty socks, filthy underwear, cast off as if these places were just other rooms, were the private dressing quarters of the damned. I’ve always wondered [...]
Brand New Leather Jacket
by Wayne G. 09/23/2005Neighborhood: Harlem
It was a beautiful November afternoon. I was relaxing in my house located in Wagner Projects, when I realized that I had enough money saved up to buy the leather jacket I wanted. So I went in my sneaker box, where I had $500 saved and went to a store called Jan’s. Jan’s is located on [...]
B-Man: The Next Door Neighbor From Hell
by Kristin B. 05/27/2004Neighborhood: Harlem
I live next to the neighbor from hell. B-man is about 5/10, slim and dark skinned. He always wears a black kango and one of his old black suits. I can tell they’re so old because of all the wrinkles in it,cand besides that its faded. On the east side of Harlem on 129th Street [...]
Spare Change with Bullets
by Peter L. Strauss 01/31/2004Neighborhood: Harlem
A slightly built African-American man in a standard-issue beige trenchcoat murmured as we passed on the street. “Say, you wouldn’t mind giving the time of day to a Black man?” “What can I do for you?” “Well, I’m just here at St. Luke’s, you see, for the methadone program, and I have to get home, and the buses, [...]
Cat and Prostitute, 1969
by Hadley Price 01/31/2004Neighborhood: Harlem
It was 1969 and cats were everywhere in Morningside Heights. Multitudes of feral alley prowlers, storefront dozers, and the gray cat who was allowed to sit in the open, unscreened window of the fourth floor apartment across the street. He was always reaching toward pigeons with a wistful paw, even though the pigeons were never [...]
Harlem on My Mind
by Denise Campbell 01/30/2004Neighborhood: Harlem
Melting orange popsicles, dripping ice cream cones, slushy cherry ices and candy all day long–all reminders of lazy summer days spent growing up in Harlem. A day that began for me not long after dawn. Peering out of my living room window, I see that the Harlem world is just beginning to stir, but I [...]
Ghetto Superstar Maurice Ashley (He Plays Chess)
by Robin McDowell 01/30/2004Neighborhood: Harlem
Eliot Majors, age 9, slides his queen diagonally across the chessboard, then inexplicably halts one square short. Check. Several watching youngsters groan. “Nooo!” cries one, clutching his chest, and falls to the ground in dramatic disbelief. Maurice Ashley, age 34, removes his dark sun glasses and his leather jacket. “You sure you want to do that?” he says. It [...]
On the Anniversary of Not Seeing Her Again
by Alex Jablonski 01/30/2004Neighborhood: Harlem
Manhattan is the capitol of the unexpected encounter. There are no dogs barking to warn you of the unexpected, no dust being kicked up on a long curving dirt road as a stranger approaches. So it was that I found myself standing in Nussbaum & Wu, wishing that her presence had kicked up a little more [...]
