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A Longer Walk
by paula katz 04/20/2012Neighborhood: All Over, Upper West Side
For twenty-one years I walked the same beat on Manhattan’s Upper West Side – from my apt on West 86th Street to my office on West 64th. I have lived in the same apartment for thirty-two years and have worked in the same office for twenty-one. I am a person who likes security and whose [...]
Queen of the Plaza
by peter nolan smith 03/17/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown
St. Patrick’s Day promised to be another disaster for the Retail Collection of the Plaza Hotel. Hordes of green-clad spectators streamed down the escalator into the basement. Their eyes averted the luxury goods on offer, as their destination was the hotel’s public bathroom. Within the first hour I had given directions to the toilet over [...]
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, [...]
Bento Box Bingo
by Ben Yagoda 02/26/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Lower East Side
Many things are curated in this day and age. Google will happily refer you to “a curated book,” “curated digital apps,” “a curated list of televised soccer games,” a “meticulously curated” fixed-gear bicycle boutique in Paris, and “a curated set of grooming products.” A curated door, such as can be found at 27 Ludlow Street [...]
Date Night At The Gambling Den
by Elioutte Green 02/15/2012Neighborhood: Midtown
My husband has figured out a way to play poker round the clock, save when he is at work, in the shower, reading a book or in bed sleeping. He plays it on his phone against other poker enthusiasts in round-the-clock online tournaments. It doesn’t bother me – he’s not the type to bet [...]
175 Bleecker Street
by Mary Shanley 02/13/2012Neighborhood: Greenwich Village, Uncategorized
Annie was the whitest, white girl I ever did see. A walking anemic, she looked in perpetual need of a blood transfusion. If she were to walk through the halls of the high school dragging an I.V. pole with a bag of blood hanging off the top, I don’t think anybody would have batted an [...]
Elevator Days
by Joseph Scalia 02/10/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Financial District, Lower Manhattan, Manhattan
Whenever I go to a party or I am introduced to people I don’t know, they invariably ask me what I do. “What do you do?” And I always tell them, “I am an elevator operator.” I say that I drive an elevator in downtown Manhattan. The reaction to my announcement varies. Some people smile [...]
The Clerk, the Librarian, the Hobbit and the Cop
by Christine Nieland 01/08/2012Neighborhood: Zuccotti Park
“This,” I realized, “I’ve got to see." In and out of grass-roots politics my entire adult life, I’ve marched, demonstrated, phone-banked, written letters and e-mails, signed petitions, sold buttons, attended meetings, gone on the radio, made documentaries, and helped with organizational duties. Early this October, I had joined in one Occupy demonstration in Washington [...]
Looking For Lady Gaga
by Josh Gilbert 01/04/2012Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown
A Barney's window display of Lady Gaga's work has legendary multi-media performance artist Colette's notorious creations written all over it. Colette, whose seminal performance art and multi-media installations originated out of New York City's vibrant art scene in the 1970's has traveled to museums and galleries all over the world; including the Guggenheim; MOMA; and [...]
Talking Back: My First Encounter with the Human Microphone
by Jean Garnett 12/31/2011Neighborhood: Financial District, Uncategorized
I first visited Occupy Wall Street on a chilly evening in the middle of October. A few hundred people were gathered near the eastern steps of Zuccotti Park for the nightly meeting of the General Assembly. On the steps a young man was shrieking inaudibly. A few yards away, a jackhammer was being applied to [...]
Gratuity
by Robin Kilmer 12/30/2011Neighborhood: West Village
Everyone thinks the French are so cute. But I’m a waitress, so I know better. I deal with plenty of tourists. I don’t mind them while they’re at the restaurant and I do my best to decipher their accents and answer their questions—though I do draw a blank when they ask me where all the [...]
Richie Two-Ax
by Donald Reilly 12/29/2011Neighborhood: Featured, Gowanus, Manhattan, Park Slope
When my father walked onto the construction site of the Western Electric Building on Broadway and Fulton, he asked a dark-skinned guy in hard hat where Richie Two-ax was. The construction worker eyed my father’s neatly pressed slacks and asked, “Who are you?” “I’m his friend? He told me to meet him here for lunch,” [...]
