You are currently browsing the stories about the Midtown neighborhood

Looking For Lady Gaga

by 01/04/2012
Neighborhood: 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 [...]

Payback

by 12/01/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown, Uncategorized

My first real job was in a recording studio on 8th Avenue and 44th Street, producing movie commercials for broadcast on the radio. I was the second engineer, which sounds a lot more impressive than it was. I set up microphones, recorded the talent, edited sound effects and music, layered the voice over the background [...]

The Red Berets

by 11/11/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown, Restaurant Row, Uncategorized

In my youth I wore a red beret. Twenty-some years ago, I was a New York City Guardian Angel who patrolled Restaurant Row with Curtis Sliwa and his wife, Lisa, and about ten other vigilantes. We were a small group who made a lot of noise. We also patrolled the “A” train, which we nicknamed [...]

Hunting The $99 TouchPad

by 10/28/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown

It’s not that you have to wait in line it’s how you spend your time waiting. At first I planned for a Netbook to do my writing on the go. Keyboard, long battery life and reasonable price were the enticing factors. I checked out a Netbook on display inside the Staples store on 6th Avenue [...]

The Handbag

by 10/28/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown

My good friend’s elderly grandmother was always losing her handbag – leaving it in restaurants, bank lobbies, once in a Times Square movie theatre. One morning the old woman awoke and could not remember what her handbag was for; and so, within weeks her family moved her to a nursing home where her senility rapidly [...]

The Cry of Tarzan

by 10/11/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown, Uncategorized

Back in the 1970’s, my girlfriends and I decided to spend a Saturday night without boys at a restaurant in midtown called Jacques. Long gone now, Jacques was a cool, elegant white table-cloth place that stayed open late and served delicious Hungarian food. We looked lovely walking in, in our pretty summer dresses and soft [...]

Bear Patrol

by 07/19/2011
Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown, Park Slope

The door to Karen’s office was open and I waved a little hello as I entered, indicating that I would only be a second. Karen was the creative director at the magazine publisher where I was freelancing as a copy editor. I thought there was something cozy about her, something very motherly, in a distracted [...]

Cy’s Place

by 07/19/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown

The voice on the phone is asking what I see, and since this is the third time we’ve spoken, I’m feeling a bit chummy. “Police cruisers,” I say, taking in the block. “A whole shit load.” We’ve been tracking each other since Penn Station, this voice and I, for precautionary reasons I’m told, and this [...]

Trash Fiorucci

by 07/01/2011
Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown

In the late-70s Fiorucci on East 60th Street was the style center for the disco world of New York. The windows boasted the latest flash fashion from Italy. These trendy threads guaranteed almost immediate entrance into Studio 54 or any exclusive disco in Manhattan. Joey Arias was the store manager in the summer of 1977 [...]

My Life Among The Pedicabbers

by 02/20/2011
Neighborhood: Featured, Midtown, Times Square, Uncategorized

I usually hate Times Square. At its best it is a bunch of light bulbs on steroids, marquees on acid and fluorescence on speed. But no real light penetrates this galaxy as reflected milky ways of neon; garish, overpowering signs and streaming advertisements all compete to be the best travesty of the sun. While light [...]

Hemmed In

by 02/14/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown

This is a story about my grandmother, who was young in Manhattan in the 1920s. Speakeasies, nightclubs, drop-waisted dresses, bobbed hair, cloche hats, waist-length strands of dime-store pearls. Even for a middle-class workaday office girl like Frances Thornton, those were heady times. She was among the first of the gals in her office to bob [...]

Life Imitates Art

by 01/24/2011
Neighborhood: Midtown

This weekend I went to see a film called The Wrestler. I am quite neurotic about going to the movies. Because in New York City, theaters, especially on weekends, tend to fill up and sell out quickly, I make it a point to show up about an hour early. I feel panicked when there are [...]