You are currently browsing the stories about the Lower Manhattan neighborhood
Imperfect Strangers
by Amanda Green 09/07/2009Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
There’s a low of five degrees today, and a woman gets off the 2 train with no hat, gloves, or scarf. An older man offers her some space under his umbrella, and she graciously accepts. I walk ahead of them, keeping my eyes down and forward to keep from slipping. Having underestimated the snow, I left [...]
Theft of Service
by Sam Axelrod 05/02/2009Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
It was the third week of what was to become my first real job, at Irving Plaza, the club in Union Square. I was working three days a week after school, doing odd jobs around the venue. Basically whatever tedious tasks they needed me to do. I was a junior that year, and took the [...]
My First (And Only) Paid Appearance as a Violin Soloist
by Philip Wesler 08/25/2008Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
Most violin students must diligently practice on their instruments many hours a day, for many years, before even thinking of turning professional. Some may give it up long before they become proficient. And even should they pursue their musical studies, and become skilled at playing the violin, there are only a limited number of professional [...]
Redemption Birthday
by Michele Carlo 03/31/2008Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
My dad was the Ralph Kramden of St. Peters Avenue. He always had some plot, some scheme to try to make extra money. The first I remember, he played the number. No, not “Lotto,” but the real, old-school number “played” to scary old men in the back rooms of candy stores that sold wormy Chunky [...]
Coffee, and This and That
by Beth Schwartzapfel 02/03/2008Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
“I don’t know their names, but I know them by voice,” said Galo Cardenas, proprietor of GC Snax, located on the ground floor of the New York Supreme Court building at 60 Centre Street. And if Mr. Cardenas looks at his customers askance, it’s because sideways is the only way he can see them — [...]
A Subway Grope
by I. Delaney 01/13/2008Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
Having grown up in the City my entire life, I should have had my guard on and my extra sixth sense alert for the criminally suspicious. But I had just come off an awkward date, and I was still reflecting on its minute details, and otherwise pondering the futility of finding love in this hard-worn [...]
Fish Guts & Glory
by Lucy Baker 10/13/2005Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
If all goes according to plan, in three weeks I will run the New York Marathon. For most people, training for a marathon is empowering. It gives them a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of self-worth. For me, it has been one lesson after another in humility. At five am one morning this past August, [...]
Arbor Day for Rudy
by Matt Power 05/17/2004Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
I really did try all the conventional methods. Really. I wrote imploring letters to the Office of the Mayor, I called my City Council members’ secretary at all hours, I testified at public hearings before assorted half-awake bureaucrats. Nothing and again nothing. It would have been less frustrating to tell it all to the guy [...]
Captain Z. and the Blackout
by Eugenia Klopsis 10/22/2003Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan, Multiple
The air on the fourteenth floor of 1 Police Plaza is a little thick, and Captain Z. wheezes. “You’re wheezing,” I say. “I am not,” he says, and pulls out his asthma inhaler, shakes it, and takes a puff. His lung sounds immediately clear. It’s 4:30 on Thursday, August 14, exactly nineteen minutes after the power went [...]
Roller Skating on Pearl Street, circa 1940
by Joan Henry 07/11/2002Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
There were no rollerblades in those days. We wore our roller skates on our shoes. The skates had straps that buckled across the instep — clamps, also referred to as “clams,” that we tightened with the all-important skate key we wore on a string around our necks. The wheels themselves were ball bearings; in fact, [...]
Elevator Logic
by Zachary Levin 01/29/2001Neighborhood: Lower Manhattan
The brass-plated elevator door opens, revealing it’s operator, a man named Kenny Coleman. A horde of cops, assistant district attorneys, and clerical workers bustle inside as if they’re heading to a sale at Macy’s rather than for work at the state court building at 80 Centre St. In his mid-40s, thin-faced and short, and wearing a [...]
