You are currently browsing the stories about the Letter From Abroad neighborhood
Postcard From New Orleans
by Thomas Beller 02/06/2010Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
1. My first night back in New Orleans I get pulled over by a police car. It’s night at the edge of the French Quarter. 2. From amidst flashing blue lights, pierced by that one super bright lamp the cops shine into the car, a figure emerges. I am alone. 3. "I’m sorry," I say. "I for [...]
The Greatest Game
by Ron West 07/19/2009Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
Some people say the 1958 NFL Championship game between New York and Baltimore was the greatest game ever played. Some say it was the playoff game where Carlton Fisk hit that home run. Some say it was the 1980 Olympics when the US Hockey Team beat the Russians. All those people are wrong because I [...]
Detroiters Make Citizen’s Arrest, Save Starbucks CDs
by Eric C. Novack 04/27/2008Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
It was Tuesday and I held the door for a well-dressed black woman on my way into Starbucks at Mack and Woodward. She thanked me and I thought of my mother who had taught me to be a gentleman. I followed her up to the counter where four or five more people were waiting to [...]
Floor Pounding Polkas: A Croatian Wedding Story
by Joseph Scalia 10/28/2007Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
I should have known I was in trouble when I read the wedding invitation and saw that the reception was in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge someplace in New Jersey. The second clue was that the directions were in a foreign language! I was no stranger to ethnic couplings, having seen both the [...]
You’re in the Quiet Car
by Hal Sirowitz 10/09/2007Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
“Whether you know it or not, you’re in the Quiet Car,” the conductor announced. “That means you have made a commitment to silence. The first obligation is to shut off your cell phones. And just because the train stops at a station doesn’t give you the right to turn it back on to listen to your [...]
All of a Piece: Saint Anthony’s Statue and New Guinea Mourning Rituals
by Thomas Maschio 06/18/2007Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
Every Tuesday when I was a small boy my mother would take me to visit a statue of Saint Anthony in Saint Francis Church on 31st Street in Manhattan. Saint Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of the poor. Curiously, he is invoked by those looking for lost things. Along with Saint Jude he [...]
Kosher Nostra
by Ken Paprocki 06/18/2007Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
Climbing the steps of the Chelsea townhouse, I hoped the guy who opened the door would be a stud. I found him on Craigslist, in the rideshare section. He was headed to L.A. via Omaha, where I was getting off. Nine days had passed since I answered his cross-country-in-a-cargo-van ad. In that time he assured me [...]
A Great First Day at Orient
by Thomas Maschio 06/01/2007Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
The middle of May holds much promise for the North Fork surfcaster, or fly fisherman. By that time the striped bass have moved up into the shallow flats and bays around Orient and the water has warmed enough so that the bass have begun to feed with a good deal of purpose. In mid-May the [...]
Something in Common
by erika 12/31/2006Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
As a survivor of a tragic event, I remember it like it was yesterday and yet, it seems like a dream. The first five weeks were surreal. I don’t know how I got through it. My friends helped. Everyone said I was strong–I wasn’t. I wanted to die. I almost did but I held on [...]
The First Emperor at New Rochelle, Theater #16
by Peter F. Eder 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
Tan Dun’s new opera, “The First Emperor,” which premiered in December at the Metropolitan Opera and included Placido Domingo in the title role, was a complete sell-out for its run. The Met’s new GM, Peter Gelb, created a unique opportunity to expand the audience, by telecasting the WQXR “Live from the Met” broadcast in cities [...]
You are Here
by Kate Angus 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
It’s snowing outside the window, here in northern Michigan. A scattering of thick white flakes, puffs like breath escaping the warm cave of your mouth, swirls like white smoke exhaled slow back in the day when cigarettes were still glamorous. At night, when they fall, you look up into a sky that is seamlessly black, [...]
More or Less How It Got To Be 4 O’Clock
by Bill Teitelbaum 12/31/2006Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
Six months out of college, with an undergraduate degree in English literature and still operating on the assumption that my real life had not yet begun, I was offered a job conducting interviews for a market research company. The firm occupied a converted warehouse in a Garden City industrial park, but most of my assignments [...]
