You are currently browsing the stories about the Upper East Side neighborhood
Shoe Glue
by Susan Sawyers 04/15/2010Neighborhood: Upper East Side
The dark interior smells of leather, glue and shoe polish. It looks as if Jim’s Shoe Repair hasn’t had a fresh coat of paint since it opened. In 1932 when Vito “Jim” Rocco walked across the threshold of his shop on East 59th Street between Park and Madison Avenues in Manhattan, it was one [...]
A Sidekick for St. Patrick’s Day
by Brian Quinn 03/17/2010Neighborhood: Featured, Upper East Side
Walking the streets on St. Patrick’s Day in New York City is akin to walking into an insane asylum in which all the inmates have been starved for days, denied all their medications, punched about the head a few times, then painted green and released from their cells. Also, someone has pissed in all the [...]
Dental Cares
by Daniel Menaker 02/26/2010Neighborhood: Featured, Upper East Side
I have had a lot of trouble with my teeth, having been born with weak enamel in store in my childhood, a nutritional illness that almost killed me as an infant, and then a horribly incompetent dentist during my adolescence. Norbert Vaughan, who sadly encouraged his patients, even his teen-aged patients, to call [...]
Crazy But True
by Elizabeth Manus 08/09/2009Neighborhood: Upper East Side
At 4 a.m. on a Saturday night in May, I was suddenly trapped in my own bedroom with no likely route to freedom. I had just turned out the light and pulled the covers when a strong draft slammed the bedroom door shut. This had happened before, but the door had never locked. The problem with [...]
The Sadistic Pleasures of the Guggenheim Café
by Thomas Beller 07/19/2009Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Sometimes I sit in the lunchroom of the Guggenheim Museum and write. If I can, I sit at the rear wall, where there are many framed black and white photographs of the museum’s benefactors, artists, and scenes of the museum’s construction. A bearded Brancusi sits with his dog; they resemble one another, both smiling. Thomas [...]
The Holy Cart
by Thomas R. Pryor 06/08/2009Neighborhood: Upper East Side
My primary focus in grammar school was scheming ways to get out of class. At the start of seventh grade, I weighed my options. The parish claimed it needed money all the time. It ran fifty/fifty clubs, cake sales, bingo, casino nights, you name it. The low earner on the ledger was the religious article [...]
Schadenfreude — How Bout Those Boys?
by Thomas R. Pryor 12/13/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
The Dallas Cowboys losing -- my number #1 Schadenfreude trigger. As you get older the word hate drifts from your conversation. It’s a bad word, and a silly emotion to hang onto. Life’s too short. If you’re lucky, you lose it all together. If you’re really lucky, you save it for one person, one particular thing, or [...]
Working His Way Up
by Mr. Murphy 08/06/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Roberto is giving Vince the usual changing-of-the-guard rundown: who has dry cleaning, who’s expecting guests, who left keys for the housekeeper, etc. When he’s done, Vince shakes his hand and says, “Good luck.” What’s that about? “I gotta get my pengé fixed,” he tells me. He has prostate cancer. It is in times of crisis that friendships are [...]
Niketown, Your Town
by Russell Ricard 06/26/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
December 2001. Like every other New Yorker, it still feels like the towers just fell. Bush said spend, Bloomberg called upon you to stimulate the economy. Niketown, Your Town. The makeshift commercial plays in your head as you peruse the store; it is after all one of your favorite places. Just do it. Besides, it’ll [...]
Cats Are Prisoners
by Lesley Clark 05/25/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
Little yellow post-it sticky notes were posted all over the apartment. “Help yourself” was on the refrigerator, “coffee’s here” was posted on the silver Gevalia canister. In big red letters atop the post-it note was, “Warning- Caffeinated” and a postscript, “I know how you are on caffeine,” all this accompanied with a little bewildered looking [...]
We Kindly Ask That You Turn Off Your David Mamet
by Jean Paul Cativiela 05/03/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
At first one or two left, dignified and quiet, as if they had to get home to relieve the babysitter. Then coats started rustling, whispers became impolitely perceptible, and the audience grew ever more restless. The Kaufmann Auditorium in the 92nd Street Y was turning into an unhappy, however cultured, hubbub. But David Mamet droned on, inexorably [...]
Local Stops
by Willie Perdomo 03/15/2008Neighborhood: Upper East Side
It’s brick outside, thermal-brick, coffee cup lids have coughing fits and a blind man with two good legs gets into my pocket by saying that I could be him one day. At the 116th stop Jane runs into Dick, all surprised and shit, she says, Wow, when did you move up here? Dick gives her the [...]
